by Abby Gordon
“Correction, Ginny. It’s ‘give us’ and ‘on our own’,” Max corrected her pronoun usage mildly.
“Right,” she agreed. It was hard to concentrate when all she could feel was an unfamiliar fuzzy warmth in her heart. They were in this together. It was a strange sensation. For too long she’d been on her own. “But if I find Polaris first, I’m not leaving her alive for you.”
“Fair enough, but that goes for me as well.”
Mark glanced at Zach and Nia. “Are you as confused as I am?”
“Yes,” they both nodded.
Ginny ignored that by-play and leaned forward as her brother turned around.“Art, do you have a problem killing a woman?”
He gave her a cold, implacable look. He moved forward with deliberateness in his step. As he went behind Max’s chair, Max turned to keep the other agent in full view. Art gave him a bland look and continued to her other side.
“Ginny, I have no problem killing anyone who has sworn to destroy my country. If that person was stupid enough to kidnap my nephew, I’ll probably enjoy it for the first time in over twenty years.” His expression softened slightly. “You know we’re with you on this. Don’t twist my words.”
“Then what did you mean?” she replied still slightly antagonistic as he finally sat down. She most certainly did not know they were with her! “What is the twist?”
He glanced over at the cousin on his right. “Gordon?”
The blond, blue-eyed man smiled slowly. “Ginny, our last mission was a weapons shipment that was bought in the Caribbean through Cuba,” he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. “And it was bought by a woman.”
Ginny understood that immediately and nodded. Her thoughts were taking her down dark and dangerous paths on the root of the deception, Polaris and who they were. Polaris, though, was the immediate threat. And getting her son back was paramount.
“You think Polaris is getting ready to make a final push?” she frowned.
“We’re not sure about that,” he shook his head. “Damn, but we screwed this up. All of us. The entire Agency. We were working on the assumption that Polaris was a man.”
The third blond further down the table nodded, glancing up from his laptop. “Ginny might be right.”
“Gee, thanks, Ed,” she drawled.
“You have a pretty good right-to-wrong ratio,” he grinned at her. She couldn’t help but smile back. He was the only one younger than her. “I just pulled up the data on weapons purchases by women.”
Art scowled. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“There’s not much you do like,” Ed fired back.
“Oh, there are a few things,” Art murmured, leaning back in his chair.
His eyes darted to Nia’s profile. Ginny caught the look and was surprised. Her brother had a reputation as a womanizer and, as far as she knew, had two strict rules—no fraternizing with female agents, and a strict love ’em and leave ’em policy. She didn’t know Nia well, but didn’t like the idea of her getting caught in her brother’s games.
“What is it?” Nia asked.
“We were tracking a couple shipments. We lost them in a rural area of Maryland near Shaneytown.”
“You mean, the six of you had a mission that didn’t succeed one hundred per cent?” Ginny gasped, sarcasm dripping. She was going to lose her patience soon. They were listening, but they were still treating her as if she was a junior member of the team. “I’m absolutely shocked. And yet, you’re still allowed to go out on missions. And I’ll bet that other agents probably would give an arm for the privilege of working with you.”
Max reached over and covered her hand with his. Under the gaze of everyone, he squeezed her fingers. Ginny’s hand turned and gripped his back. Her treatment ten years ago still stung, but now wasn’t the time for egos. She bit her bottom lip and looked down at the table.
“Ginny,” Art said quietly. “Was Charlie able to tell you anything about where he was?”
“A farm,” she replied, focusing on the matter at hand. “At least twenty-four people. And it took about four hours to get there.”
Art glanced at the second cousin with a laptop open. “Paul?”
Paul was already tapping away at his laptop. His eyes scanned the info. “I think we’ve got it,” he murmured. A few more clicks and he nodded. “Yep. A farm that was bought about twenty years ago, a few months before Polaris’ first action.” A few more clicks and he grinned. “Man, oh, man. Give Charlie a gold star. It’s two hundred twenty miles from your house, Ginny. Given weather, traffic, and road conditions, it would have taken them three hours and forty-seven minutes. And, shit,” he whispered. “Thirty miles from Shaneytown.”
Art nodded. “All right. Let’s get everything we can on it and roll.”
“Not. Quite. Yet.” Ginny’s voice held everyone in their seats. She looked at Max and cocked an eyebrow. Understanding, he nodded. He was more than willing to back her up in whatever she was about to say. She had to know. Had to ask.
“Whatever you do,” he whispered. “Together.”
“When did you know the truth about that mission? Why didn’t you say anything? Why…” She caught her breath and looked at her brother. “Why didn’t you even come see me in the hospital?”
“I did,” Art whispered. “All of us were there.” He moved to stand in front of her. Ginny bit her bottom lip as his fingers brushed her cheek. “Ginny, we’re about as dysfunctional as a family can get. But, you are my sister.”
She shook her head. “Why don’t I remember?”
“After three days, we were ordered out,” Gordon told her.
Peter shook his head. “Jesus, Ginny, you were twenty-three. It was your first mission. And the entire time you were unconscious, his name was the only thing you said.”
“Enough, Peter,” Art cut him off. He looked at Ginny. “We were told that you had a concussion and minor scrapes and bruises. No one told us it was more until much later.”
“How long were you unconscious?” Max asked her.
“Five days. Coma due to blood loss.”
“Yet you still thought her injuries weren’t serious,” he commented to Art. “Sounds serious to me.” Ginny watched her brother’s face as the comment hit, along with the contempt in Max’s voice. “So you changed your mind. Why?”
“It was the summer after Charlie turned one,” whispered Art. “I went out to Ginny’s house and saw him playing with Del. And I just started wondering. She had created something for Charlie that we’d never had. A home. She had been cut-off, isolated, but she hadn’t broken. If anything, she seemed stronger. Even as some part of her seemed wounded. Lost.” He shook his head. “But just because I didn’t like it or understand it, didn’t mean I was going to go against orders. So I tapped you for the next mission I could.”
“To get my measure,” finished Max.
Art nodded. Ginny’s head swiveled as her gaze went between the two men.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ginny whispered.
“I understood that you were trying to protect Charlie.” He gestured at their cousins. “If any of us had started coming around, then who knows what hell would have broken loose before he was old enough to deal with it.” He shook his head. “Jesus, Ginny, is now the time?”
“No,” she agreed. “After we get Charlie back.” She took a deep breath and looked at the men. Nia, Zach, and Mark appeared to have gone into shock. And not everything had come out. “We’ll need a few more people in the room to get everything aired out.” She looked at Max. “How do we do this?”
Max’s gaze swept the room. “Everyone in this room will do everything humanly possible to get Charlie back. And only then will we discuss this matter further. And only then if Ginny wants to.”
Art nodded.
“Understood,” he replied. “Paul, what do you have on the layout of that farm?”
“It’s pretty basic,” Paul started. “Main house, with a few smaller buildings in a fai
rly open area. But,” he grinned, gesturing to the plasma screen next to the map. A satellite photo came up. “There’s good cover around the house from trees and brush.”
Chapter Eleven
Ginny was quiet, listening as the others talked and moved around the room. Every few minutes, one of her cousins would glance at her, look at Max who would glower at him, and then shift on their feet. She found that both amusing and illuminating. Amusing because she couldn’t remember the five of them ever being intimidated by anyone, besides Art and the oldest members of their family. Illuminating for the same reason. Their reactions to Max also revealed a respect for him. Ed and Gordon, two years younger and three years older, respectively, than Ginny, also seemed to be going out of their way to avoid being alone with him. Ed had nearly choked on his coffee when Max asked him a direct question about their last mission. Paul had answered in a clipped voice that told Ginny he hadn’t wanted to respond.
“She’s good,” Nia commented quietly, sitting next to her.
“Polaris?” Ginny asked, getting a nod in return. She nodded. “Yes, she is. And given the time frames…” She frowned, tapping the pencil she held against the table. “My first instinct is to peg her as KGB, but from what little we know about her she’s American.”
“A deep plant? Maybe her parents were KGB and she’s carrying on their work?”
“That’s a possibility I hadn’t thought of,” Ginny sighed.
“It couldn’t be one of ours, could it?” Nia cocked her head. “I mean, there aren’t many female agents now, so I would imagine that twenty years ago there were even fewer.”
Ginny mentally reviewed the names she knew so well. “Oh, dear God,” she breathed. “The timing…”
She closed her eyes, praying she was wrong. Nia was thinking along other lines.
“When did the agency first know about her?”
“She was ‘named’ fifteen years ago. We’ve got strong evidence that her first activities were eighteen to nineteen years ago.”
“What was her objective ten years ago?”
“Capitalizing on the 9/11 attacks by blowing up the Capitol building before Congress went into summer recess.”
“You succeeded in keeping her from doing that,” Nia reminded her.
Ginny smiled slightly. “Yeah, we did, didn’t we? Mostly because we blew up her explosives ourselves.”
Nia frowned slightly and Ginny waited, seeing in the younger woman a talent for thinking and analyzing. “I thought that was a fireworks warehouse vandalized by some delinquents.”
Ginny shook her head and glanced at Max. “Nope, that was our fearless leader.” She raised her voice slightly and Max turned his head. “Blowing up the secondary building holding Polaris’s explosives.”
Max gave her a cocky expression as he sauntered over and put his hands on her shoulders. “It slowed her down a bit.”
She nodded, then whipped her head around. “What kind of munitions were in that shipment?”
“Oh, shit,” Art murmured. “Congress is about to recess for the Fourth of July.”
Ginny felt her blood turn cold. “Ten years later.”
Max’s fingers flexed against her.
“If Charlie’s meant to be a distraction…”
“She picked the best one,” Art nodded. “We have to let Frank and Minerva know.”
“You tell them. I’m not going anywhere near Frank or the Special Ops Director,” Ginny told him, gesturing to Paul across the table from her. “May I borrow your laptop for five minutes?” Behind her, she sensed Max’s amusement and her brother’s confusion. “Art, I’ll be ready to go in five minutes. If you’re going to tell them, you better hurry.”
“I forgot how you like to manage those around you,” Art murmured, tapping her head three times. “Paul, give her your laptop.”
At the gesture from when she was a child, she gave him a quick grin before tapping away at the keyboard.
Art left the room while everyone else seemed uncertain of what to do.
Mark, Zach, and Nia clustered at the far end of the table with Jason and Peter. Ed stood behind Jason, the second eldest of the cousins. Closing the laptop, Ginny suddenly lifted her head and fixed her gaze on Mark. After a moment, he lifted his head and saw her staring at him. When she nodded, he rose and moved to sit next to her.
“Something wrong?” he asked quietly.
“That mission,” she murmured. “What happened to you?”
“Al and I, we got Max’s call about your position coming under attack. We moved out as the warehouse by the dock blew and saw the barn blown to pieces as we neared. We opened fire on the men at the edge of the woods. Quite a few managed to get away. While I covered him, Al went to see how you and Max were.”
“Al?” she echoed. “Al pulled us out?”
Mark nodded. “Yeah, he did. Well, he pulled Max out. Max was holding onto you and wouldn’t let go. Al was yelling at him to leave you…”
“Yeah, I can see him doing that,” Ginny murmured, her mouth twisting. “What about Sam and George?”
“They arrived as we pulled you clear and called for med-evac.”
“What was Max’s condition?”
“When I got to you, you were both unconscious,” he said slowly. “Most of the blood seemed to be yours.”
“The first grenade,” she whispered as Art returned.
“First?” he frowned.
“There were two,” she nodded, turning slightly and pulling a pad and pencil closer. Swiftly she sketched. “The window was here. I saw men here in the tree line,” she made small x’s. “The men Max brought down were here.” She made small y’s. “A grenade about the size of a softball came through the window. Before it went off, something, I’m figuring a grenade that didn’t make it through the window, exploded on the other side of the wall.” Max and Art had come to stand behind her chair. “The explosion lifted us off the ground.”
“You sure?” Art frowned.
“I remember hitting the ground,” she replied, voice low. “And Max landing on top of me just before the second one went off.”
“Max?” Art sent the other team leader a sharp look.
“I’m the one that doesn’t remember a damn thing about the entire thing,” Max replied, placing his hands on Ginny’s shoulders. “I don’t understand why you’re questioning her like this. How many times does she have to repeat it for you to believe her?” He leveled a cold look at the other man. “Art, she’s your sister and you haven’t done anything for her and Charlie in ten years.”
“Max?” Ginny whispered. “You didn’t,” she said slowly.
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t look for me ten years ago.”
That drew him up short. With a sigh, he nodded. “I should have. We all should have done things differently.”
“We’ve been through this,” Art ground out.
“No,” Max shook his head, voice dripping icicles. “We’ve simply postponed it.”
Ginny slapped her hand on the table. “Enough with the testosterone,” she exclaimed. “Could we please focus on Charlie? Every second wasted could put him in greater danger.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Peter scowled. “Storm the farmhouse with agents and snatch him back?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“Shit, Ginny…” The tall blonde rolled his eyes.
“Stop swearing, Peter,” she glared. “I’m serious.”
“It’s not procedure,” Art frowned. “Procedure says we wait for the next call…”
“Polaris is expecting procedure,” Ginny told him. “She’s expecting us to wait here. She knows our procedures. So we have to do what she’s not expecting.”
“Nine against two dozen in a fortified…” Peter shook his head.
“I count eleven in this room,” Nia spoke up. “I realize that is higher than you can count on your fingers, but you can always take your socks and shoes off and use your toes.”
Ginny winked
at her then tilted her head to look at Max. “I like her.”
“Good,” he smiled. “Now, why don’t you give us the condensed version of what you’ve figured out the past half hour?”
“I’d love to hear how she’s so sure that Polaris knows our procedures,” Peter commented.
Ginny kept her eyes on Max, but could see Art’s expression in her peripheral vision. Realization appeared in their eyes in the same second.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “Ginny, you can’t honestly think that Polaris was an agent.” Art shook his head. “I mean, you claim Charlie said Polaris is a woman. There aren’t that many female agents now and ten years ago there were even fewer.”
Ginny saw the shift in Max’s eyes and knew her shock was reflected in hers. Oh, God, she realized, she was suspicious of her own brother! How could Art think it was that simple? She knew he was extremely intelligent. So what on earth was he thinking? Her gaze swept the table and she realized by their expressions that her cousins were thinking the same way. Reaching up with one hand, she put it over Max’s on her right shoulder. Eyes on her brother, she shook her head.
“Then someone is giving her the information, which means any of the men could be doing it. Fact is, Polaris has eluded the Agency for nearly twenty years. We’ve come too close too many times for her to not be getting inside information.”
“Ginny, that’s absolutely crazy,” Peter snapped, leaning toward her across the table.
Art stopped him with a subtle hand gesture. “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he murmured.
“Art!” protested Peter.
Art lowered his head and Ginny could see the conflict in his eyes. What she was suggesting was obviously more radical than he had ever considered. The first thing that came to mind was “welcome to my world, big brother.” Right now, she had to focus on getting Charlie back. Adjusting her family’s attitudes toward her, among other things, would have to wait.
“What do you suggest?” Mark asked her, leaning slightly forward.
“If Max thinks we need a few more agents, then he picks them. We load up and head out as soon as possible.”
