by Gabby Grant
Albert gripped his buddy’s cold, dead hand, facing the unbearable truth. Tom had been the brother Albert had never known. One of the few friends he’d had left in an often friendless world. And Albert hadn’t even had the goddamned words to say goodbye.
Albert hung his head and wept like a baby, as memories called and careened through the enveloping darkness. “Always loved you like a brother, too,” he choked out, as a nurse barreled in and monitors blared.
***
Mark sat in the DOS media room watching the large screen television that took up almost an entire wall.
Alone again on New Year’s Eve, he thought, running his fingers through his stubbly hair. The story of his life. A story he’d thought he’d amended about three years ago when he’d first fallen for Ana Kane. The woman he’d not so incidentally recently found in another man’s arms. A man who’d earned Mark’s grudging respect for having helped save Ana, not once- but two times, in the course of recent history, Mark reminded himself.
Mark sank back against the sofa, thinking he’d been too hard on McFadden. The man had eyes in his head, after all, as well as the analytical intelligence to see Ana’s attractive qualities ran more than skin deep. And Ana was a big girl, besides. Any indiscretions between her and Joe- had they existed at all- were sure to be mutual. Ana was simply not the type to be coerced into situations against her will.
So, what was keeping her now? When she’d gone to keep Joe company at the hospital, she’d promised to be back before midnight. Mark checked the clock on the wall, seeing she still had ten minutes. Ten minutes to fall farther into Joe McFadden’s sticky web, Mark thought bitterly, surfing through the channels looking for news. But on December 31, 2001, all seemed to be carrying on as normal. All except for the one disillusioned husband in this room.
Mark had thought they’d been doing so well. That he and Ana were moving past whatever had or hadn’t happened in that cabin in Virginia. Mark knew he wanted to give it another go, and he’d been certain Ana’d been sending out signals she wanted to give their marriage another try, as well. But there was always proof in the pudding and Mark felt like he’d just been served up an awfully big helping of dessert.
When times of crisis abounded, just where did Ana go? Whom did she choose to be with? Where was she now, at eleven fifty-five on a night she’d sworn to be present?
“Excuse me, is that seat taken?”
Mark looked over in surprise to see Ana standing at the far end of the sofa, a bottle of sparkling wine and two champagne flutes in hand.
“Ana?”
“What?” she said, “Did you forget our date?”
Mark raised his brow.
“Our standing date, silly. For New Year’s Eve.”
“No, I’d never forget that one,” Mark said, thinking he couldn’t remember a night in his life he hadn’t hoped to spend with Ana Kane.
“Well, good,” she said, plopping down beside him.
Mark started to slide over to make room.
“Stay right where you are,” she insisted. “I’m going to need your help.”
“Ana,” Mark said, as she handed over the bottle. “We need to talk.”
“Wait!” she said, casting an eye to the big-screen TV. “Turn it up, they’re making some sort of special announcement! Look, it’s The Old Post Office!”
“Yes, Joan,” the anchor said, turning to his co-host, “I suppose that’s all we have. No balloons at this year’s Presidential gala.”
“Oh Walter,” Joan pouted through over-done lips, “what a pity! I just love that balloon drop! It’s practically my favorite part.”
“Wouldn’t have been this time, sister,” Mark directed at the screen, as he twisted the corkscrew of his Swiss Army knife into the champagne cork.
Ana shushed him with a nudge of her elbow.
“And, what’s that they’re saying?” Joan asked Walter. “What was given as the official reason for the cancellation?”
Walter gave the camera a credit card smile and glanced down at a sheet of paper. “Latex recall,” Walter said, baring capped pearly whites. “Something about the oils of the rubber.”
“Very slick,” Ana said through the corner of her mouth.
Mark howled as the champagne cork popped and Ana nudged him again. “Will you hush!” she warned, narrowing her eyes. “I swear when I want you to talk, you’re a clam shell, and now-”
“...positively scary,” Joan finished, with a frozen tilt to her lips that didn’t look the least bit afraid.
“What?” Ana asked, turning to Mark, who was filling each of their glasses half way. “What did I miss? What did she say?”
Mark grinned. “This time, I wasn’t the one talking.”
“You-” Ana said, accepting the champagne glass Mark had poured her.
Mark set the bottle aside and hit the “mute” button on the remote.
Ana looked at him. “But, we’ll miss the-”
“We’re not going to miss a thing,” Mark told her, putting down his glass. “It’s time, Ana. I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Ready to listen. You told me when-”
“I know I did. But not tonight. We’ve been through so much.”
“Exactly. And now’s as good a time as any. The best time for wiping the slate clean. For starting fresh.”
“Listen, Mark,” she began tentatively, “you’re not the only one who’s messed up here.”
Mark’s gut twisted. “This about McFadden?”
“Partially,” Ana said, “but mostly about us.”
Mark looked deep in her eyes, needing to know this and know this now. “Ana, what really happened at the cabin? Between you and McFadden?”
Ana pressed her lips together and blinked back the moisture building in her eyes. “Not what you think. Not what you think, at all.”
“But I found you-”
“I know what you found. Rather, what you think you found. But what you saw was all there was. There wasn’t going to be anything more.”
“And now?”
“There never will be anything more,” she said, laying a hand on his knee.
Mark pressed his hand on top of hers and clamped her to him. “Can you promise me, Ana? Promise me there’s never been anybody else?”
“Oh God, Mark,” she said, her chin a-tremble. “How can you even ask me that?”
But instead of answering, Mark just waited. Waited, praying to God she could tell him what he wanted so desperately to hear. That there was no Joe McFadden, never had been any Joe McFadden, not since right after Costa Negra.
Ana put her own glass down on the table and steadied her gaze. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But first, I want to ask a promise in return.” Mark’s stomach prepared for the one-two punch. “I want you to promise me you’ll never doubt me. Swear to me that, when I tell you something, you’ll believe it to be true.”
“You want me to make this promise before you come clean about McFadden?”
Ana nodded. “It’s about trust, Mark. Between the two of us. How can I ever tell you what’s in my heart, if I can’t for a second know you’ll believe it.”
He knew she was right, but still the pledge caught in his throat as he voiced his oath. “I swear,” he said, damning the burning swell in his soul. Mark tightened his grasp on Ana’s hand, unsure of what to expect.
Ana brought her free hand to his face and looked up and into him with her hypnotic brown eyes. “There is no Joe McFadden and hasn’t been for a very long time. You, Mark Neal, are the only man I’ve ever wanted. The only man I still want.
“But I won’t lie to you...”
Mark swallowed past the bulge in his throat.
“I was tempted, tempted for a moment with Joe...”
Mark felt the perspiration building at his hairline but willed himself not to react, just listen.
“But it wasn’t about us, Mark. I can see now our troubles were apart from that. With Joe is was about...”
&n
bsp; “Yesterday?” Mark filled in, damning the heat in his eyes.
“Exactly,” Ana said, slipping her hand out from under his and bringing it to his other cheek so his face was cradled in her palms. “And the danger, the uncertainty of the moment. But I knew, even then, who I was- where I belonged. Something inside stopped me, made me believe that. Now, I want you to believe it, too.”
“I want to believe,” he said, needing to be strong for the two of them, knowing if he failed her, he would fail them both. So what, about McFadden and what may or may not have been? Words often lied but feelings seldom did, and what Mark’s heart said at this moment was that Ana spoke the truth. Mark raised an unsteady hand and stroked Ana’s silky hair, just as incredulous now as he’d been when they said their vows that a creature this beautiful was willingly his.
“Then do,” she said, smiling past her tears, as she lowered her hands to his shoulders. “Dare to believe. Because deep in my heart I know you’ve never really left me. That I’ve never really left you. This thing between us,” she said, lightly stroking the side of his neck. “I won’t call it love, because it’s more than that. So much more...”
“Ana,” Mark said, cursing the single tear that escaped the corner of his eye. “I need to say I’m sorry. Sorry for so many things-”
She shushed him by bringing a finger to his lips. “We’ve both made mistakes. Maybe it’s time we stopped thinking about yesterday, and set our sights on tomorrow.”
“No, truly. This isn’t just about McFadden... From the beginning, when things started happening at-”
Ana arched her lips to his and stopped his words with a kiss. A kiss that opened up whole new worlds and swept away any darkness and lingering doubt. And, in an instant, Mark knew he’d been crazy to ever doubt her. This woman who filled him up with liquid fire and sent heat, like molten lava, surging to his groin. His Ana, now and for always. The woman that he loved... Dammit, more than loved- adored- with a passion greater than any that had existed on heaven or earth.
“We’re going to make it, aren’t we, Mark?” Ana asked, tears streaming from her dark brown eyes. Eyes that must have been the gift of an angel. “We’re going to be okay...?”
There were a million answers to that question, but only one that really mattered. His father-in-law had been right. They’d been made for each other, Mark and Ana- just as surely as Albert had been made for Isabel. And now he was going to prove it, show her what all this time had been lying dormant in his heart. For Mark ached with a telling need to be her husband, just as surely as her beckoning eyes said that Ana longed to be his wife- in every sense of the word.
Mark glanced over at the silenced television, seeing it had somehow passed midnight.
Well, he'd be damned if they weren’t going to celebrate. Celebrate so many things, starting with their new beginning.
“Better than okay,” he said, flipping her sideways onto the couch. “There’s not one goddamned camera in this room.”
EPILOGUE
The bugler wailed out soft and low, sending his mournful tune wafting over the simple white markers of Arlington National Cemetery. Ana reached out and took Mark’s hand in the fading twilight as the Sergeant of the Guard retrieved the folded flag and settled it respectfully into Joe McFadden’s hands.
Out of deference to Tom and the man he had once been, Mark, Albert and Au Yang had seen fit to devise a plan. A plan that called for a complete cover-up of Mooney’s involvement in the tainted Volcano scheme and firmly placed the blame on the now-deceased Chinese espionage king-pin Hay Long and the Arab Al Fahd’s exploded head.
There would never be an official record Mooney knew anything of Volcano beyond inception of the original plan. It had been Hay Long who’d invaded the DOS database records in Year 2000, and after stumbling across the near-perfect plan, had decided to bring Volcano to life. He’d tracked down the three original team members and weighed their potential for involvement. Kane, because of his current position at DOS, was a no go. But, Au Yang, then operating as a double-agent in China under the name Sun-tzu, was an immediate target.
Unaware of his double affiliation with the Chinese and the DOS, Hay Long had taken an unwitting chance in recruiting the so-called Sun-tzu into service. For Sun-tzu, it had been an uncanny stroke of luck. He now had the opportunity to get the goods on the slippery eel Hay Long, who up until that point, had managed to conceal his physical identity from American Intelligence, while simultaneously folding himself into a nefarious operation whose outcome Au Yang could hope to influence.
When Au Yang first learned Hay Long had also secured the cooperation of the Gray Wolf or Tom Mooney, he’d been incredulous. But then, after having met with Mooney, he’d seen the situation for what it was. Mooney wasn’t playing with a full deck and Hay Long had somehow managed to convince him that what he was about to become involved in was for the good of America. Probably using old DOS data from the original plan’s development, Hay Long preyed on Mooney’s growing paranoia of a communist infiltration of the defense intelligence system. Hay Long even may have told Tom he was Au Yang’s son. Though this was never verified, it would have further explained Mooney’s willingness to work with him.
Au Yang, as Sun-tzu, had met with Mooney twice in attempts to dissuade him from further promulgating Volcano. The first time, Tom had recognized him as his old friend Au Yang and been genuinely concerned by Hay Long’s duplicity. Tom had sworn to sever his affiliation. But the next thing Au Yang knew, Mooney had made connections through Hay Long with an Arab named Al Fahd and was already plotting the analyst scare.
Au Yang had set up a second secretive meeting. But this time, Mooney had decried him as an imposter and a damn commie. Au Yang’s son Hay Long, Mooney had said, had told him the truth...
Au Yang tried to get warnings to the analysts he could, but the ever-foxy Al Fahd became increasingly difficult to outmaneuver without Au Yang blowing his cover. Still, he’d used his influence to protect his friends where he could, among other things by planting the suggestion that US mercenary John Smith, whom Au Yang understood was really CIA man Joe McFadden, be charged with Ana Kane’s disposal.
Ana looked across the midnight coffin to where Joe stood, clutching his Uncle Tom’s flag to his chest. Beside him, Carolyn Walker steadied his arm with her womanly touch. A womanly touch, Ana suspected, that Joe could get used to- given time.
Mark tightly squeezed her hand as the Chaplain offered up a final prayer and the small party at the graveside bowed their heads. Ana thought briefly of Isabel, safe now at home with her new nanny. A nanny who’d undergone a most thorough background investigation at DOS Assistant Director Albert Kane’s directive. Ana, Albert and Mark had decided to grant Maria Gonzales some leniency for her eventual cooperation in revealing all she knew. Her admission of Tom’s final visit to the DIPAC, and positive identification of him as being El Lobo, had confirmed the broader picture of Tom’s mental imbalance that the rest of them had already suspected.
Mark and Ana had decided not to press charges, but rather had helped Maria and her ailing husband Pepe relocate to the southwestern United States with the assistance of the same DOS Witness Displacement Program that had once taken such a heavy toll on Albert Kane’s life.
Ana caught a glimpse of her father standing at attention beside the Quarter Master, and a heat flashed in her eyes despite the early January chill. Her father was the next in line, Ana realized, returning Mark’s tightened grip. He was now little more than a vague shadow standing in the half-light. When Ana’s mother Isa had died, she’d taken Albert’s heart. And now, cover-up or no, Tom’s death had deprived Ana’s father of his soul.
The service ended with a blood-pounding twenty-one gun salute. Then, after a few moments of silence, the small crowd dispersed.
“Want to say something to McFadden?” Mark asked, turning to Ana.
But when she looked over, Ana saw Joe was wrapped in Carolyn’s arms.
“No, that’s alright,” Ana said. “I
think we’d better go. Father?” she said, calling to where he stood motionless beside the casket. “Coming with us?”
Albert spun slowly on his heels and joined Mark and Ana on the path that led to the gate.
“I’m getting too damn old for this business,” he told them, his expression drawn. “I want the two of you to know I’m stepping down.”
“Leaving the DOS?” Ana asked. “Now?”
“Already put in my resignation,” Albert said. “And, Mark,” Albert laid a hand on his son-in-law’s shoulder. “Also my recommendation for my replacement.”
“Me, sir?” Mark asked, stopping in his tracks. “I’m very flattered, but we’re all settled down in Virginia.”
“Be easier for you to keep an eye on my daughter up here,” Albert said, with a sound swat to Mark’s back.
Mark eyes fell on Ana’s, but she quickly averted her gaze and looked toward the sky.
Mark looked from Albert to Ana, then back again.
“Oh no... No, no,” Mark said, shaking his head. “You’re not telling me that Ana-”
Mark raced his fingers through his hair and blew a hard breath.
For a fleeting instant Ana almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but not quite. Ana had been the victim of duplicity her entire life. The time to turn the tables had finally come. And Mark would get used to it, she knew he would. Just as surely as she’d finally adjusted to the idea herself.
“Ana,” Mark said, shaking his finger, “I never once said you could-”
Albert raised his brow, but Ana just offered up her brightest smile. “It‘ll be alright. You’ll see. The two of us make quite a team; you said so yourself.” It was true he’d said it in another context, but Ana doubted Mark would argue with her now, especially in front of her father.
