by Dees, Cindy
A frisson of ethical discomfort tickled her spine. She ought to object to this whole thing. Except the boy really did need to get to his family and really was too young to get there by himself. And it wasn’t like they were endangering the child.
The boy tearfully directed them to a thankfully high and dry part of town. Grandma’s windows were still boarded up, but the front door was open and there were signs of life.
Oscar leaped out of her lap and ran for the front door, shouting. A middle-aged woman came out and scooped the boy into her arms tightly. As the boy sobbed, the woman’s face crumpled and the pair shared their grief. It was hard to look at, and Katie turned into Alex’s shoulder for comfort.
His body was rigid, his face set in stone. She didn’t care how tough he tried to be. He was affected. He was just conditioned to act closed off and unfeeling. His arm came up around her shoulders for a brief squeeze. Hah, she was right!
He said tersely, “Time for us to be on our way.”
Oscar’s grandmother barely got a chance to murmur her thanks before Alex climbed on the moped and waited impatiently for her to clamber on behind him. With just the two of them, they were able to ditch the wagon. They pulled away from the house and she wondered sadly how many more personal tragedies just like that were playing out all around them.
Alex pointed the moped toward the middle of town with purpose, like he had a destination in mind. She leaned forward to ask over the noise of the motor, “Where are we going?”
“The hospital.”
She frowned. What did he want with a hospital? They couldn’t just stroll in and announce their presence in Cuba to the authorities. But apparently, that was exactly what he had in mind. They parked in front of a decent-size white building that appeared to have weathered Giselle reasonably well, and Katie followed him hesitantly as he marched into the emergency room.
“Let me do the talking,” he muttered low.
Ya think? She made a face at his back as he headed for a man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. The Cuban doctor got a surprised look on his face, but in a few seconds nodded in agreement with whatever Alex was murmuring to him.
Alex returned to her side, shedding the backpack of their emergency gear as he came. “Take this and find a spot out of the way to get comfortable. This will take a while.”
“What will take a while?”
“I’m trading my surgical skills for the supplies we need.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “We need supplies?”
“To get clean samples,” Alex bit out. And then he was gone, turning to join the doctor who called out something about being ready behind him.
Chairs were in short supply, so she found a corner and hunkered down in it. She leaned against the backpack both for comfort and so no one could take it while she dozed. They’d gotten precious little sleep since they’d arrived on the island, and the warm, muggy waiting room knocked her out.
It was dark when she woke and the waiting room crowd had thinned considerably. The backpack was still behind her and there was no sign of Alex. She wandered the halls in fruitless search of him and eventually stumbled across the cafeteria. She took the mug of soup someone handed her and nodded her thanks. It was some sort of thin broth with canned vegetables floating in it, but it was hot and quieted the growling in her stomach.
Bored, she returned to her corner to wait for Alex. She slept on and off through most of the night before a hand on her shoulder jerked her awake. It was Alex bending over her in surgical scrubs, looking exhausted.
“Time to go,” he said low.
“Don’t you want some sleep?” she mumbled, groggy.
“Later.”
He doffed the scrubs, hung a light, bulky bag on the back of the backpack and passed the whole thing to her. He’d become more of an order-giver in the past year. More willing to take charge. That, in and of itself, wasn’t bad, she supposed. But it could be a little irritating being ordered around. Katie had to laugh at herself a little for falling for a guy just like all the other men in her family.
How did her mother tolerate six men who were all just like this? The woman must have the patience of Job not to haul off and coldcock one of them now and then. Katie sighed and climbed to her feet, stiff and sore from sleeping on a hard, cold floor.
Since she would be sitting in back of Alex, she got to wear the backpack. The night was cool. The ocean chuckled and murmured nearby and its briny odor hung thick in the air. The moon was high overhead, a lopsided disk throwing cold light down on them. Shockingly, the moped was right where Alex had left it.
They climbed on and he pointed their ride to the north. His body was warm and vital against hers, and she snuggled close against him. His presence was reassuring like nothing else on earth to her. She probably shouldn’t feel so safe given where they were, but she did. Alex could handle anything that came their way.
They ran into two military checkpoints, but the sleepy soldiers let them pass when he identified himself as a doctor heading north with medical supplies to find and treat victims of the hurricane. At the second checkpoint, the soldier opened up the bag hanging from her pack and seemed satisfied with what he saw inside. He waved them through.
The sun was rising by the time they reached the iron gate leading to Oscar’s ruined home. A thin layer of fog rose from the moist earth, making the morning misty and bright.
She was surprised when Alex turned into the driveway.
“I’m beat,” he muttered by way of explanation. “The shed’s intact and we can use it for cover while I go down for a few hours.”
Spoken like a true field operative. “I got plenty of rest yesterday. I’ll take the watch while you sleep,” she offered.
He nodded briefly. It took them a few minutes to carry out enough farm tools, buckets and junk to make enough room to stretch a tarp on the dirt floor for Alex. Without further ado, he handed her a loaded pistol, laid down and passed out.
She sat on the edge of the tarp inside the door for several hours, watching the day age. A few birds sang outside, and she wondered idly where they’d ridden out the storm and managed not to get blown away. Already, the area was renewing itself, recovering from the storm. If only she could find a way to do the same for Alex. There had to be a way to renew his soul. To wash away the hurts his parents had caused the boy and to heal the man.
She watched him sleep, memorizing the features of his face again. His cheeks were leaner than last year, his hair shorter and lighter and his skin darker, as if he’d spent a lot of time in the sun. His mouth spent more time compressed in a line than before, but right now it was relaxed, his lips full and kissable. Like this, he looked nearly the same as before.
But then, his eyes were closed. That was where his changes really shouted at her. His gaze now was cold and assessing, where before it had been at best sardonic and, at worst, cynical. He looked at the world now with a detachment he hadn’t had before. Like everyone around him was a bug potentially to be stamped out if they made a wrong move.
For the first time since he’d come home, she allowed herself to wonder guiltily if it was her fault he’d had to endure whatever had been done to him for the past year. She’d been the one to tip the scales in his life, to force him to choose sides and accept employment in the CIA. Before she and Dawn had come into his life, he’d successfully walked a tightrope between the CIA and the FSB. He’d carved out a life for himself where everyone more or less left him alone. But no more.
She and Dawn had made him vulnerable to pressure. He’d had to give in and choose sides. She was just grateful he’d gone with the United States. Frankly, she was a little worried about the CIA having given him all the lethal training they apparently had. Even she wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was fully committed to Uncle Sam. It wouldn’t shock her if someday he switched sides and went to work for his father in the FSB.
It was one thing to know Alex had changed this year. It was another entirely to know
she was responsible for it. She found it a whole lot harder to blame him for being like he was now.
What had Peter wanted with him yesterday, anyway? She’d heard Alex speaking, low and angry, in Russian while she comforted Oscar. And why the abrupt reversal of course to Baracoa after the call? Curiosity made her impatient for Alex to wake up so she could quiz him on what was going on. Assuming, of course, that he would tell her the truth. That might be an optimistic assumption on her part.
Something moved outside and she lurched to alertness. Gripping the pistol tightly, she eased back deeper into the shadows of the shed. As if he had radar for it even when unconscious, Alex’s arm came around her from behind, startling her. Dang, he was quiet. His hand closed over hers on the pistol.
She relinquished the weapon gratefully, and he moved silently in front of her. She backed into the shed and fumbled in the pack for the other pistol and spare clips of ammunition.
She jerked violently when Alex shot fast from the doorway, two sets of double-taps one after the other so quickly she could barely count the four shots. Holy shit. He’d just shot someone.
He moved outside as fast as a snake. She yanked the spare pistol free of the rucksack and followed him out, the weapon chest-high in front of her and her heart in her throat.
“All clear,” he bit out.
She lowered her pistol and watched him feel for a pulse under the neck of...crap...a soldier. A second motionless body in a uniform crumpled not far from the first one.
“You killed soldiers?” she wailed in dismay. Emphasis on killed. As in other human beings snuffed out.
“They were looters. Not military.”
“How could you tell?”
“No belts. Hair too long. The one with the shotgun held it wrong.”
“You shot them because they had no belts?” she demanded incredulously.
“I shot them because they weren’t who they appeared to be, and they were headed for our shelter. Given the current situation, it is logical to assume they were here to loot it. Which meant they were at least casual criminals. Which meant you would be in danger from them if I didn’t take them out.”
“So you killed them.” He wasn’t showing even a hint of remorse over shooting down two men.
“So I killed them.”
“Does it feel good playing Rambo?” she muttered. What the hell had happened to him? The Alex she’d known before he left was a doctor. A healer. He fought to save lives, not to casually take them. Who was this man?
He didn’t respond to her sarcasm and merely said grimly, “Pass me that shovel behind you.”
“Hiding the evidence?” she asked dryly.
“Exactly.”
“My God. You’re not kidding, are you?”
He glanced up from where his shovel bit into the soft earth of what had likely been a garden. “Spy Craft 101. If you kill someone, hide the body. There’s no need to make your trail any easier to follow than you have to.”
“You just murdered those men!” she exclaimed. She could not believe he wasn’t reacting at all to that small fact.
“And last night I saved the lives of several people. Your point?” he snapped as he shoveled.
“Don’t you feel anything at all?”
That made him stop shoveling long enough to look up at her. “Feelings interfere with optimal performance. If I’m going to keep you safe and get you out of here alive, I have to be on my game.” He shrugged and went back to shoveling. “It was a no-brainer.”
And a no-hearter, too, apparently. Color her stunned.
“Look, Katie. Killing isn’t something ever to do lightly. I get that. But this is not a normal situation. We’ve been sent into the aftermath of a devastating storm to look for something dangerous. All the normal, everyday people have left the area. It’s a good bet that most of the people who’ve returned to this place so quickly are not looking to rebuild their lives and practice good citizenship. This is, in effect, a war zone. The rules of engagement are different here.”
She reluctantly conceded that his logic might be sound. But still, it rankled with her. She grabbed a spade and started shoveling beside him.
It took a solid hour of both of them digging to make a trench big and deep enough to lay the two bodies in. Alex searched the dead men briefly. He showed her their wallets, neither of which contained any kind of military ID.
Okay, fine. So his belt theory had turned out to be accurate. Still, it was a hell of a flimsy excuse for killing a man.
He tossed the wallets back on top of the corpses and took a pocketknife, the shotgun one of them had been carrying and a pouch full of shotgun shells. He started to shovel earth over the corpses.
She murmured a brief prayer for the dead men’s souls and then picked up her spade. Covering the bodies went fast. They tamped down the dirt and Alex spread dead grass and debris on top of the spot. By the time he was done, nobody would ever guess two men were buried there.
“Satisfied?” she asked grimly.
“We’re good to go. Let’s see if we can find the Zacara factory and figure out what the hell’s going on around here.”
*
ALEX WISHED THEY’D been able to take the moped as they walked through the iron gate and turned onto the main road headed north. But stealth was called for over speed in approaching the factory. And if his map was accurate, the Zacara plant was only about a mile away.
He shouldered the backpack, registering with shock a faint tremor in his hands. He was a surgeon, for Christ’s sake. His hands were steady under the worst of stressful conditions.
It wasn’t like he’d never killed before. The CIA had taken care of that in his advanced training. But waking up to see a terrified Katie wielding a pistol...to glimpse an armed man approaching her position...a criminal who wouldn’t hesitate to kill her—that had scared the living hell out of him.
He swore mentally. It was an experience he could do without repeating again. Ever.
The actual killing didn’t faze him anymore. He’d long ago accepted that he was a tool. If he didn’t kill a target he’d been sent to eliminate, someone else would be sent to do the job. The decision of whether or not a person lived was not his. It was, literally, above his pay grade.
If he ever attained enough rank to be in a position to give kill orders, then he could wrestle with his conscience to his heart’s content. But not now. The CIA went to great lengths to make its wet ops people understand this distinction. To teach them the mantra: No guilt. Make the kill and move on.
In this particular situation, his orders were clear. Stay alive. Find out what was being smuggled in or out. Once they knew, get out. And in his best judgment, staying alive had required shooting those two men.
Was he relieved to find no military IDs in their wallets? Hell, yes. But would he still have shot them even if they’d actually been soldiers? Absolutely. They posed a threat to the mission—and, furthermore, to Katie—therefore, they must be eliminated.
Katie had accused him of not reacting to shooting the looters. She was right that he’d felt nothing much about the actual act. What she was missing was the cold, hard terror that had provoked him to kill in the first place. For her. Without thought, without hesitation.
What was this willingness to do anything for another person? Was it love? The idea exploded inside his head, filling his entire brain with disbelief.
If so, it was a hell of a way to find out you loved a person. Somehow, he doubted Katie would be thrilled. Oh, baby, I love you so much I’ll kill for you. Nope. Not her idea of Prince Charming and happily ever after.
It damned well rocked his world, though. Had his father felt this for him? An unflinching willingness to kill for his son? Had the boy Alex just been too young and too naive to realize that, in his own way, Peter had loved him fiercely?
Katie hiked beside him for a few minutes. She broke the silence with, “Tell me again why we zoomed off to Baracoa with Oscar?”
His defenses went on full ale
rt. Must evade this line of questioning. He answered casually, “The boy needed someone to take care of him. I know you. Had we not delivered him to his grandmother, you’d have insisted on hauling him around with us.”
“And?”
He winced. She knew there was more to it than that, dammit. “And we needed supplies for properly collecting and storing samples that might come under intense international scrutiny at some point.”
“What kind of supplies?”
“Sterile bags and test tubes that can be sealed in such a way that the seals must be destroyed to open the samples.”
“Because if there’s sarin in the samples, the United States is going to go crazy,” she declared.
“Exactly.”
“Why else?”
He pretended to concentrate on scanning the deserted countryside in hopes that she would get distracted and move on.
“Why else did you go to Baracoa?” she pressed.
Nope. She was not going to be distracted today. “I needed time to think,” he tried.
Expectant silence came from beside him.
He sighed. “As you no doubt noticed, my father called. I don’t know how, but he got wind of what we were going to find when we came up here. He called to check up on me. To see if I found any...unusual...deaths.”
“How did he know about those?” Katie exclaimed.
“I assume the Cubans told him. Or he’s got a mole in the Cuban government who slipped him the information.”
“Okay, so the Cubans know there was a chemical spill out here. How do they know that?”
He shrugged. “Satellite imagery, maybe. Or a local observer has reported in to Havana. Or there’s a military presence in this area.”
“Wouldn’t the military try to evacuate the locals if there was a chemical incident?”
He answered grimly, “Not if their orders were only to protect the chemicals or to hide the evidence of their existence.”
Katie stumbled a little. “If that’s so, then we’re in serious danger. And maybe those were real soldiers back there.”
