She digested this, her knuckles white on the railing. “I thought Army Rangers were supposed to be all about protecting the helpless and the innocent.”
“They are. And if I thought for a minute you were helpless or innocent, I might reconsider. But then, since I haven’t been an army Ranger for a long time, I guess those rules don’t apply, anyway.”
She frowned. “But I thought…”
“You picked the wrong man to mess with, Jane. I’ve spent the last dozen years wallowing in the filth and muck of the world, hunting down people like you and your terrorist cell.”
She closed her eyes—in frustration or guilt, he didn’t know. “I don’t have a terrorist cell! Why on earth would I? I’m a translator from Buckinghamshire!”
“Who happens to speak Tagalog, Vandish, Parsi and Arabic. I can think of at least a dozen terrorist organizations who would find great use for someone of your linguistic abilities.”
“Provided I agreed to cooperate with them, which I never would!”
She certainly sounded convincing. Her eyes sparked with outraged innocence and sometime in the last few minutes the color had returned to flare high and pink on her cheekbones. Another man probably would have been completely taken in.
Too bad he’d learned early not to trust anyone.
“That’s good, sweetheart. That outraged-innocent act should play well with the FBI.”
Fear skittered across her features but she quickly contained it. “Are you army intelligence or CIA?” she asked softly after a moment.
“Neither. I’m officially retired.”
“Which were you?”
“It doesn’t matter. That chapter of my life has been closed.”
“You’re a spy.” She shook her head, an odd expression in her eyes. “I should have known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” She gazed up at the mountains, just beginning to turn purple with the sunset. “What will you do with me?”
“I don’t have anything to do with this. For now we’re going to go inside and wait until our friends from the FBI arrive and then I’ll wash my hands of you and go back to my life.”
“You’re making a terrible mistake. Is there anything at all I can say to convince you of that?” Her voice sounded sorrowful, almost without hope, which gave him pause. What if she was telling the truth? What if she had been caught up in this whole thing entirely by bad luck and circumstance?
Yeah, and those mountains might suddenly crumble into dust. He couldn’t afford to weaken, not with so much on the line.
She might look the picture of innocence in her borrowed T-shirt and jeans, but it was all an act. He couldn’t let himself forget that—though it might be a good idea right about now to develop a little selective amnesia himself and try to forget the soft tenderness he had started to feel for this woman.
She had played him, that was all. Whatever he thought might have been between them had been as much a chimera as the rest of it. She had played him for a fool and he had let her.
“Save your lies for the FBI,” he snapped, angry at his weakness. He was even more angry when it took every ounce of self-control to keep his hands tightly fisted at his side so he didn’t reach for her when she flinched at his harsh words.
“I’ll do that, then,” she murmured, her eyes on a dark spot on the horizon.
A car, he realized, traveling up the long Bittercreek driveway. If he wasn’t mistaken, it looked like the kind of bland dark sedan favored by the unimaginative FBI.
He had time only for one quick flash of annoyance at Cale for not giving him the extra time he had sought, then he realized this way was better. He wanted this done, wanted her out of his life so he could figure out how to go on from here.
“Looks like there’s your ride.”
She was breathing rapidly, shallowly, he realized, and her pupils were wide with panic and desperation.
She clutched his arm, her gaze glued on the sedan as it made its inexorable way toward them. “Mason, please! You can’t let them take me. You saved me once. Can’t you do it again?”
What new game was this? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t save you from anything.”
“Yes, you did.” She sucked in a huge gulp of air. “You did. The moment the fog in my mind lifted this morning, I remembered you. You were there, part of the rescue team in Colombia when my father died. I wanted to run back to help him and you wouldn’t let me. You grabbed me and tossed me into a helicopter. I would have died just like Harry if you hadn’t. I’ve never forgotten you. Well, except for the last few days.”
Suddenly everything clicked. He realized exactly why she had looked so vaguely familiar to him and why her name had struck a chord somewhere deep inside him the moment Cale mentioned it.
“Harry Withington was your father. You’re that girl we rescued from that FARC rebel camp.”
“Yes!”
He’d all but forgotten that incident because of the hundreds that had come later. He had been a young soldier, still idealistic, still caught up in the Ranger’s “We Lead the Way” mentality.
He had a vague memory of a half-starved wraith of a girl sobbing on his shoulder all the way to Bogota, where his unit had been having training exercises with the Colombian military when they had been activated for a rescue.
He hadn’t thought of her in years but now he wondered that he had missed the connection.
“I would never associate with people who want to rule by terror, Mason.” She spoke quickly, urgently, as the government sedan came within fifty yards. “I couldn’t! I know firsthand what they’re capable of. I know what it’s like to spend six days in a hole in the ground, afraid every moment would be my last. I saw my father die right in front of my eyes. You saw him die. All I ever wanted after that terrible experience was a comfortable, safe life. You must believe me!”
How much more complicated could this all get? Just when he had steeled himself against her, she tossed a grenade like this at him. He remembered that girl, remembered that chopper ride and how he had held her while she screamed and sobbed for her father.
Near the end of the ride she had collapsed from grief, exhaustion and hunger, and finally slept but he had been reluctant to release her. Later his team members rode him mercilessly about it, but he had held tight until they landed at the air base outside Bogota, when he had turned her over to waiting embassy officials.
The experience had affected him profoundly, one of several that swayed him to accept the agency’s offer when they came calling not long after.
Could someone who had been through such a hideous ordeal at the hands of rebels—little more than terrorists and bullies—align herself with men of similar ilk?
He had a tough time believing it. On the other hand, Cale said the case against her was airtight.
What a tangled mess. He didn’t know what the hell to do. He had learned to rely on his instincts over the years but those instincts hadn’t exactly been reliable the last few days.
Right now he didn’t trust himself to be rational about Jane Withington. He wanted to believe her story, not just because of the brief intersection of their respective pasts but because he hated thinking those instincts had gone so haywire.
But if he was wrong, he would be letting a terrorist escape justice. He couldn’t risk it—and he couldn’t risk any further threat to his children’s safety or security. If he helped her escape, he would be the one going into FBI custody. And then what would happen to Miriam and Charlie?
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have to worry. It will all sort itself out.”
“You can’t honestly believe that, can you?”
He felt a qualm of guilt but forced himself to think of Charlie and Miriam. “I can’t help you, Jane.”
A tiny light flickered out in her gaze and she seemed to withdraw inside herself. “Won’t, you mean.”
“Can’t,” he repeated.
Sh
e gripped the railing, looking fragile and frightened. In her borrowed teenager clothes, she looked as young as that frightened fifteen-year-old yanked out of a hole in Colombia and he wondered again how he had possibly missed the resemblance.
The sedan finally reached the house and two men climbed out. When they were still out of earshot, Jane turned to him, her voice so low he could barely hear it.
“I used to dream about you. My knight in battle armor. As a fifteen-year-old girl, I fell a little in love with the handsome American soldier who rescued me. I didn’t know your name but you were everything good and decent in the world to me.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “As I spent today with you and the children, I thought I was falling in love with you all over again. But I must have been mistaken. How could I be in love with someone like you? You’re just a hard, empty shell, with nothing inside you but mistrust and suspicion.”
Her words cut into him like whirling machetes. Before he could begin to think of an answer, the two men reached the porch.
“Ms. Withington?” The younger agent who spoke could have been the FBI poster boy, with his crew cut and pleasant features. Mason was stunned by his desire to beat the crap out of him. “We’re agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Would you come with us, please?”
She looked defeated, completely worn down. Confused and aching, Mason stepped forward, enough hero left in him to try to protect her as much as possible. “IDs?”
The agents both gave him the once-over, then presented their identification. He studied them carefully then handed them back.
“They’re legit. Just go with them, Jane. I still have contacts in intelligence circles. I’ll make sure you’re given extra protection in custody and that you’re treated fairly.”
She lifted blue eyes to his and he was stunned by the lack of expression in them before she allowed the FBI agents to lead her into their sedan, put her in the back seat and close the door behind her.
He watched the agents climb in, then start the sedan and take off down the driveway, wondering if he had just made the biggest mistake of his life.
An empty shell of a man, she had called him. She couldn’t have been more wrong. A man who couldn’t feel would not have to suffer this pain and wrenching guilt as he watched the dark sedan’s taillights disappear over the rise.
He stood and watched until he couldn’t even see a cloud of dust from the vehicle, then he opened the door, to be met instantly by the children.
“We saw a car. Where is Jane? Who are the men?” Miriam asked.
How did he explain all of this to the children? Easy. He couldn’t. “Um, she had to go away.” That much was true, at least.
Miriam appeared to digest this. “When will she return?”
He should prevaricate—he was damn good at it, after all—but somehow he couldn’t force out a convenient lie. Instead, he gripped Miriam’s little hands in his. “I don’t know if she will, honey. I’m sorry.”
She gazed up at him in disbelief for nearly a full moment, then her face crumpled and she started to cry. Her tears broke his heart, especially since she usually held her pain deep inside herself.
“She did not say goodbye! She was my friend. Why did she did not say goodbye?”
He pulled her into his arms, completely out of his depth with a young crying female. It didn’t help that his own throat felt gritty, clogged with emotion. Charlie started to cry, too, more in sympathy with his sister, Mason thought, but it didn’t make his tears any less real.
“Why did she go?” Miriam wailed.
He didn’t have the first idea how to respond to that. Before he could come up with an adequate answer, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He wanted to ignore it but a quick glance at the caller ID identified the caller as Cale Davis.
“Yeah?” he said shortly. He wanted to be angry with Cale for sending the agents out earlier than he expected but couldn’t manage to summon anything but pain. He couldn’t blame the other man. Not really. He was just doing his job, trying to make the case. Mason had certainly been in his shoes a time or two.
Besides, it was probably better not to delay the inevitable, anyway. Sooner begun, sooner done, his mother used to say.
“Just wanted to let you know two agents are on their way to pick up your Brit.”
Not his Brit, he thought. Not anymore. “They’ve come and gone. She’s on her way in.”
Cale said nothing for several seconds, just long enough to make Mason itchy all over again. “What do you mean, on her way? That’s impossible. I just talked to my agents before I called you and they’re still fifteen or twenty minutes out.”
CHAPTER 15
At the FBI agent’s words, Mason’s heart seemed to stutter to a stop.
He drew in a deep breath, his hand fisted around the phone. “There must be some kind of mix-up. Two of your agents picked her up ten minutes ago.”
“They weren’t ours. I swear it.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
She was right! He should have listened to her. She had been afraid for her safety, had tried to tell him, and he had handed her over to certain death.
Fear clutched at his insides with cold, bony fingers. He couldn’t seem to make his brain work beyond having the presence of mind to slip away from the children to his office down the hall.
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, fighting the panic in his chest.
“They had proper credentials, Cale. I checked them myself. They were legit.”
Even as he said the words, he mentally groaned. He knew as well as Cale that FBI credentials could be manufactured. Hell, he’d had some himself at one time, as well as a half-dozen passports with different names and nationalities. Even if they were legitimate, Jane had tried to tell him Djami had FBI agents on the payroll.
The minute Cale told his superiors he knew where to find Jane Withington, the call could have gone out to Djami. His men could have gotten a headstart on the legitimate agents.
What an idiot. He had been so busy trying to deal with his anger and hurt, his deep sense of betrayal, that he never dared believe for a moment that Jane could have been telling the truth.
What had he done? Those icy fingers clawed tighter.
“Maybe there are members of the VLF cell still at large who engineered some kind of an escape,” Cale suggested.
Mason found the suggestion completely absurd and in that moment, the truth slammed into him with the force of a freight train.
Jane Withington couldn’t be a terrorist, any more than he was. He had come to know her these last few days and he had been stupid to believe for one second that a woman who could be so gentle and loving to his children would be willing to detonate a bomb that would likely kill hundreds.
He had believed it, though. Why? Maybe she was right. Maybe he had nothing left inside him but doubt and suspicion.
He had been in the game so long he saw enemy combatants everywhere he looked.
How could I be in love with someone like you? You’re just a hard, empty shell, with nothing inside you but mistrust and suspicion.
“No. This has all been a diversion,” he said, his heart aching. “She’s not VLF. I’d stake my life on it.”
He might have to.
With the phone still pressed to his ear, he raced up the stairs. “Look, I need your help. I’m out of the loop and I need information,” he said to Cale as he worked the combination safe and pulled out his Ruger and extra ammo.
“Let me make a few calls to try to figure out what’s going on and I’ll get back to you,” Cale said.
He didn’t have that long to wait. “Can you get me everything you know on Simon Djami, the Vandelusian trade minister, especially where the hell he is right now?”
Cale’s confusion came through loud and clear on the phone. “You think she’s going after Djami? Could he have been the target of the planned attack all along?”
“I think he’s the leader of the VLF. She tried to
tell me and I wouldn’t listen and now he has her.”
“I thought you said FBI agents picked her up.”
“I can’t explain right now. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Djami has been all over the news this week praising the treaty process. He’s the frigging Vandelusian trade minister!”
“He’s also the one who ordered Jane killed when she overheard him and his cell ironing out final details of the bombing.”
Cale’s pause was pregnant with doubt. “You know how far-fetched that sounds?” he finally asked.
“If you knew her, you would see it’s even more farfetched to believe her capable of working with the VLF. She survived a terrorist kidnapping when she was fifteen and she watched her father die during her rescue.”
“Listen to yourself, man. You’re too close to this. You’ll believe any wild story she tells you. You need to step back and let us handle things.”
“It’s not a wild story. I was there, damn you. I was one of the American soldiers who pulled her out of the hole they kept her in for six days. I threw her in the chopper and practically had to sit on her so she wouldn’t run back to her father and suffer the same fate he did. She is not involved in this, Cale. She knows Djami is involved with the VLF and he’s already tried to kill her once because of that knowledge. If I don’t hurry, he’s going to try again. I just need to know where Djami’s staying during the summit.”
“You can’t just storm the place and drag her back out.”
Just watch me, he thought, shoving his clutch piece into his boot.
“Where is he?”
Cale sighed. “You aren’t content torching your own career, now you want to watch mine crash and burn, too?”
“Forget it. I’ll find out on my own.”
He was just getting ready to sever the connection when Cale stopped him. “Wait. Give me a minute and I’ll do what I can.”
“Just call me back.”
He severed the connection and raced back down the stairs, trying to calculate how quickly he could get to Park City, taking into account that he would have to drop the kids with Pam.
In the kitchen, he found the children huddled together. Miriam’s face was streaked with tears and she looked frightened.
Back on Bittercreek Ranch Page 17
