She lifted her head and gazed up at him, her face wet, And Mish's stomach twisted. Lord help him, he hated that he'd made her cry. "Do you remember anything about—"
He cut her off. "Bee, it's blank. I swear. If I remembered anything at all about any of this, about anything, I would've told you by now." He laughed ruefully. "I can't even remember the last time I went to church."
"You tried to stay away from me. On some level you must've known." Fresh tears flooded her eyes. "And I just wouldn't let up. I wouldn't take no for an answer."
"It's okay," he said desperately. "Please, don't cry, This is going to be okay."
"How can it be okay?" she asked quietly, "when I'm still dying to kiss you?"
Mish couldn't answer. All words deserted him. But he knew that—as much as he wanted to—covering her trembling mouth with his would not be an appropriate response in this situation.
But for several long seconds, as he gazed down into her eyes, he teetered on the edge.
Becca yanked herself away from him, out of his arms and halfway across the room.
"I'm in love with you, dammit," she told him fiercely, turning to face him, to glare at him. "How is that going to be okay?"
Mish watched the van from the roof of Jerry's Tire Center through a pair of binoculars he'd picked up at Target, the last remaining department store in the dying town.
The van was still parked near the bus station.
And inside the bus station, through the window, Mish could see a row of beat-up lockers. Locker number was down near the floor, four from the right end, about two and a half feet high and a foot and a half wide. The men in the van—Tattoo, California and the Native American man—had an unobstructed view of it.
Coincidence? Maybe. But Mish wasn't going to take that chance.
He had to get what was inside of that locker without getting caught. But how?
Create a diversion simply by walking by and letting the surveillance team get a clear view of his face? Lead them on a chase while Becca went into the bus station with the key and...
No. What if there were more of 'em? What if someone else was watching locker , too? Mish wouldn't risk putting Becca into that kind of potential danger. No way. Uh-uh. No thanks.
She loved him.
Mish couldn't remember the last time he'd felt both hot and cold simultaneously, the way he'd felt when Becca had let that little bomb drop. He couldn't remember ever both wanting and not wanting something—someone— quite so badly.
He had to get whatever was inside that locker. Now, more than ever, he had to find out the truth about himself.
He was going to have to evade the surveillance team in the van on his own.
And he knew just how to do it.
Funny, he knew all sorts of breaking-and-entering tricks. He knew how to move silently, knew how to evade capture and escape detection.
But try as he might, he couldn't remember any but the simplest of prayers.
He was no priest.
But he just might be the devil.
Chapter
L/ucky sat in the van, drinking what seemed like his fourteenth cup of coffee in the past four hours, working hard to stay alert.
That was the hardest part of standing watch or doing surveillance. Staying not only awake but attentive.
He ran disaster scenarios—it was called war-gaming. He planned, down to the exact detail, what he would do should Lt. Mitchell Shaw suddenly appear, walking down the street. He planned what he'd do if Mitch just instantly appeared at locker .
He planned for Mitch to come exploding down from the low-hung, sound-deadening ceiling tiles, for him to grab his bag from the locker and be yanked by a rope back up to the bus station roof.
And he planned for his next phone call from Joe Cat.
Lucky had arranged today's schedule so that Bobby would come and relieve him in enough time for him to
dash back to the motel and be ready and waiting for the captain's phone call.
With luck, Admiral Robinson would have arrived in California, and this entire mess would be cleared up with some simple explanation. Mitchell Shaw was following Gray Group procedures for going deep undercover—procedures that the admiral had failed to tell the captain about before he left. The possibilities were limitless.
And then he and Bobby and Wes could get the hell out of this dust bowl, and get back to the ocean. After this, they all deserved a silver-bullet assignment. Something that involved a lot of scuba diving in a location that looked a lot like Tahiti with crowds of beautiful women...
"Movement inside," Wes droned. "Heading directly for our locker."
The approaching woman had the shuffling, painfully slow walk of someone who carried seventy-five unnecessary pounds on legs that were getting too old to support that much excess weight. She was wearing a blue dress that hung down almost all the way to the floor from a rear end the size of a VW Bug. She wore ankle socks with a little lace trim and a beat-up pair of running shoes. She had a baseball cap on her head, straggly dark hair coming out the back, and she wore enough makeup to win first-runner-up in the Tammy Faye look-alike contest. She carried a black plastic trash bag—the ultimate in high-fashion luggage.
As Lucky watched, she did a U-turn away from the lockers and he felt himself relax. She went to the Greyhound counter instead and bought a ticket, taking her money from a bejeweled change purse and counting it out painstakingly slowly.
Ticket in hand, she struggled her way to the hard plastic
chairs near the pay phones and wedged her enormous rear end into one of the seats.
There was no one else around. The next bus—the : daily to Albuquerque—wouldn't be ready to board for another twenty-five minutes.
Lucky swore aloud. "I actually know the daily bus schedule," he said when Wes looked up.
"I do, too." Wes grimaced. "Guess we could always get a job here in the event of more military cutbacks."
"Oh, sure," Lucky said. "I'm already looking forward to coming back to Wyatt City—but only after I'm dead, thanks. How can people live without an ocean?"
In the bus station, the woman with the trash bag pushed herself up and out of her seat.
"Got me," Wes said. "Speaking of the ocean, mind if I hop out and take a leak?''
The woman headed toward the lockers, directly toward number , and parked herself right in front of them. Her derriere was so incredibly grande, Lucky couldn't see what the hell she was doing there.
He swore again. "Wait," he told Wes. "I've got to get a closer look."
"At her? I'm sorry, I'm sure she's a very nice lady, but she's not exactly Mitch Shaw's type. I mean, we're supposed to keep our eyes out for someone he'd buy a new suit for. Someone he'd possibly sell out his country for and—"
"Wait here, because she's blocking our view," Lucky ordered, already out of the van. "I'll be right back." He headed toward the doors to the bus station, feeling every muscle in his body screaming from lack of exercise.
He walked past the lockers, past the heavy woman, into the middle of the room, then spun in a full circle, as if he'd come in and was now searching for someone. Of
course there was no one around. Even the ticket-counter clerk had disappeared into the back.
Lucky moved toward the woman. "Excuse me, ma'am. Have you seen a woman with a baby?" He gave her his best sheepish grin. "I was supposed to pick 'em up an hour ago, and time just kind of got away from me."
Everything was cool. He could see as he got closer that the old woman was taking what looked like dirty laundry and a collection of old magazines from her Hefty bag and storing it in locker number . It was down low, right next to —which was still tightly shut and locked.
The woman looked at him and shook her head.
Blue eye shadow. Who the hell had ever invented blue eye shadow? Lucky didn't mind it so much when it was applied sparingly, but this woman's eyelids were nearly neon. And the fact that her face was powdered an almost solid pink sure as hell didn't help.
And hey, she smelled as if she hadn't bathed in about four months. Imagine winning the bad-luck lottery and riding in a bus all the way to Albuquerque next to that magic.
Lucky took a step back.
"No, sorry. Haven't seen anyone." She sounded as if she'd smoked three packs of Marlboros a day for most of her seventy years.
"That's okay," Lucky said, backing away. "That's... fine. Thanks anyway."
He pushed his way out the door, taking a deep lungful of the hot air reflecting off the sidewalk. It didn't smell too fresh either, but it was a definite improvement over what had last invaded his nostrils.
He climbed into the van and turned the air-conditioning up to maximum. "You can go on, hit the head," he told Wes. "She's just a bag lady."
"I coulda told you that." Grumbling, Wes left through the back door.
Through the windshield, through the bus station window, Lucky watched the aromatic woman close the locker, carefully pocket the key and shuffle toward the ladies' room.
And once again, nothing in the bus station moved.
Wes came back in one-point-four minutes, carrying several cans of cold soda, bless him.
The stinky bag lady didn't emerge from the ladies' room for another twenty-three minutes.
When she finally did, she was still carrying her plastic trash bag. She worked her way back to the lockers and planted herself in front of locker again. She worked her magic, fussing with the trash bag for many long minutes.
Finally, when the : was starting to board, she moved away from the lockers, shuffling with her plastic bag toward the bus, leaving locker empty and open behind her.
It could probably use a good airing out.
As Lucky watched, the woman went out the big glass back door and disappeared around the side of the waiting bus. He could see the bus shake slightly, and he could imagine her hauling herself up, one step at a time, trash bag clutched in her hands.
It was still early. There would be about ten or fifteen minutes before two or three people would make the last-minute dash for the bus.
Lucky settled back in his seat.
"So. Figured out what you're getting Ellen for a wedding gift yet?" Wes asked, clearly bored out of his mind.
"Yeah," Lucky said grimly. "I'm getting her an ap-
pointment with a psychologist because anyone who gets married at her age is obviously insane."
"Ah," Wes said. And wisely, he fell into silence.
Twelve minutes passed, each one endlessly long and desperately boring.
Lucky watched the lockers, watched the bus station, forcing himself to stay awake, to stay in battle-ready mode, war-gaming all the scenarios all over again. Of course, if he were Mitch, he'd wait until dark to show up. If he were Mitch...
There they came. A station wagon filled with young women. Three were going to Albuquerque, two were staying behind. Lucky watched as they bought tickets in a flurry of movement and chaos and big hair. Hugs. Kisses. Waving, the three travelers disappeared around the side of the bus, climbed on and...
It was only a matter of seconds before they came back into the station.
Lucky was too far away to read their lips, but their expressions and gestures as they spoke to their friends were obvious. They didn't like the way the : smelled.
Back to the desk, back to the clerk. Pointing toward the bus, talking, talking.
The ticket clerk shook his head, shrugged, pointed to the bus driver, a handsome young Mexican-American man who smiled at the women. And just like that, the mood changed from indignant to a little less uptight. Everyone flirted a little bit. The women explained about the smell— complete with the gestures, but with smiles, too, this time—and the driver nodded, flexed his pecs, straightened his shoulders and disappeared around the side of the bus.
The women hovered, fixing their big hair, adjusting their bras beneath their shirts, moistening their lips, waiting for their hero's return.
One minute turned into two into three...and then he was back, holding what looked to be a torn suit jacket between one thumb and forefinger, and...
A black plastic trash bag...?
"Oh, damn," Lucky said, scrambling out of the van. He ran into the bus station, ran past the women and the driver, out the side door and around the waiting bus.
The door was open, and he launched himself up and into it and...
The bus was empty. It was absolutely empty.
He searched it, rushing all the way to the back, but the foul-smelling woman in the big blue dress wasn't on the damn thing.
He swore again, taking the stairs off the bus in a single jump, heading back into the station.
The driver had set the plastic garbage bag next to the overflowing trash can, and Lucky grabbed it, opened it and...
A giant blue dress. Little lacy ankle socks. A baseball cap. Old magazines, and a fine collection of rags.
And—all the way at the bottom—the key to locker number .
Wes had come inside, and he watched as Lucky grimly took the key and opened the locker.
Empty.
Mitch's so-called "bag of tricks" was gone.
"Son of a bitch!" Lucky swore. "Son of a bitch!"
The foul-smelling woman had been Mitch Shaw.
There was no point looking for him. A man who'd been trained in covert ops like Mitch would be long gone. Or hidden so completely even Lucky and Wes wouldn't find him.
Wes followed Lucky back to the van, climbed in silently.
"He looked right at me," Lucky fumed, as he started the engine. "He had to have recognized me. I mean, he knows me, we've sat in meetings together. What the hell is going on?"
"We have to call the captain," Wes said quietly. "I don't know, Lieutenant, but maybe we've got to stop thinking about Mitch as one of us, and start thinking of him as the enemy. If he has sold out..."
Lucky nodded. This wasn't going to be easy. Damn, telling Joe Cat that he'd let Shaw get past him wasn't going to be easy, either. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm going to recommend to the captain that it might be time to get FInCOM involved."
Becca drove north along state roads as the sun sat low in the sky.
Mish sat in silence next to her, the leather bag he'd found in the bus station locker at his feet.
He hadn't said more than twenty words to her since she'd dropped her little bomb back in the motel room. And two of those words had been an apology. Becca shook her head. She'd told him that she loved him, and his response had been I'm sorry. Still, she supposed that was a good thing. She didn't know what she would have done if he'd told her he loved her, too. It was too terrifying to consider.
The truth was, she didn't want him to love her, too. Even if he'd been just a normal ranch hand, just a regular guy, even if he hadn't come to her with amnesia and a bullet wound—yes, even a priest's collar—she wouldn't want him to love her, too.
Love was too risky. It was too uncertain. When she planned for her future, she didn't want to leave that great big unknown black hole of uncertainty gaping out in front
of her, the one with the caption under it that read: What If He Stopped Loving Her?
Mish was sorry that she loved him, and she was sorry, too. But at least she knew what her future held in store for her. She knew that sooner or later—and probably sooner, from the way things were going—Mish would leave. And she would miss him. She already missed him. From the moment she'd seen that collar, their relationship had changed drastically, and she missed feeling free to touch him, to take his hand, to look into his eyes and dream about the night to come.
But there was no way she would do that now, not without knowing for sure who he was, what he was.
Their journey together had come to an end, and soon— possibly in hours—they would part. And she would feel like hell for a few weeks or months, until the day when she woke up and found she could think about him without aching. Then she would find she could wonder fleetingly where he was, and smile at the way he'd briefly touched
her heart and her life.
But before that could happen, before she let him walk away, Becca wanted to know the truth. She wanted to know who he really was. She wanted to know what was inside of that bag.
Back in the motel room, Mish had beat a quick retreat after his apology, telling her that he was heading to the bus station. He intended to find out if the key they'd found in his jacket actually opened a locker there. How he was going to do that without the men in the van noticing him, he didn't say. He'd simply told her to meet him in two hours in the parking lot of the closest thing to an upscale bar Wyatt City had, over on the north side of town.
And then he'd left, taking his shirt, his jacket and that unmistakable, unforgettable collar along with him.
Becca glanced at him, glanced down at the bag at his feet. Supple, tanned leather covered a harder surface. It wasn't a gym bag as she'd first thought. It was some kind of hard case. And it looked as if he'd had it and used it for a long time. "Is there a reason you haven't opened that?"
He turned to look at her. "I'm afraid of what I'll find inside," he told her quietly.
Becca nodded, forcing her eyes back onto the road. "I am, too." There was a pull-off up ahead—an old abandoned gas station, the garage boarded up. She slowed and pulled into the dusty, potholed driveway, the truck bouncing until she stopped and put the engine into park.
She didn't turn off the engine. They both needed the air conditioner running.
She took a deep breath. "Mish, what happened between you and me... We're the only ones who know about it. No one else ever has to..."
She could tell from his eyes that Mish knew what she was doing. She was giving him permission to turn his back on her, to deny that their relationship had grown beyond the physical—or at least that it had for her.
"If we both agree it never happened," she continued, "then—"
Suzanne Brockmann - Team Ten 08 - Identity Unknown Page 17
