by Zara Chase
Raoul didn’t need a shrink to tell him why he had decided to become an investigator. His operatives worked under the radar, obeying no one’s dictates other than those of their own consciences, delivering their own form of justice that didn’t allow the guilty to escape. The irony was that a lot of their assignments now came from the military hierarchy, who couldn’t be seen to get involved in sorting out their own screw-ups. Raoul took pleasure in charging top dollar to clean up after them.
He had managed to right no end of wrongs—except the one that mattered the most. Despite all the money and expertise he had thrown into the search, he still hadn’t found Levi.
But, he decided, his jaw jutting with determination—that was about to change.
Raoul pulled on his normal uniform of jeans and T-shirt and wandered into the kitchen, unsurprised to find that Zeke already had the coffee going. They had spent hours planning their retirement to Wyoming, Zeke’s home state, where he was brought up with the Arapahos. Cantara loved horses, so Zeke and Raoul bred horses, imagining Cantara there with them, black hair streaming out behind her as she galloped hell for leather across the endless plains of their ranch. She would have loved every minute of it.
She would never get to see it.
“Tough night, bud?” Zeke asked, pouring Raoul a cup of strong, black java.
“Yeah. You?”
Zeke nodded. “It don’t get any easier.”
“Tell me about it.” Raoul prowled around the spacious room, moody and restless, feeling like something significant was about to happen. “Where the fuck is Levi?” he asked.
Zeke didn’t answer, probably because it was a rhetorical question Raoul had asked dozens of times before that frustrated the hell out of them both. The sound of their private line ringing cut through the ensuing silence. Few people had that number, and when it rang it usually spelt trouble. Still, today of all days, trouble was what he was in the market for. Raoul, spoiling for a fight, pushed the button for the speaker phone.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Washington?”
Raoul exchanged a glance with Zeke, wondering if he was going insane, or if he was still dreaming. He had never expected to hear that voice again, mainly because he thought the man who owned it was too cowardly to speak to him. Not that Raoul had anything to say to the bastard, but still…
“What the fuck?”
“I take it it’s you. This is Colonel Pool.”
“I know who it is,” Raoul replied, grinding his teeth. “I just wondered at your gall, calling at all, but especially today.”
Zeke placed a restraining hand on Raoul’s arm. Just as well, otherwise Raoul might have damaged a very expensive high-tech phone by throwing it across the room. They both knew Pool had been reassigned following the debacle on the West Bank, and he had been riding a desk at the Pentagon ever since. What was less clear was why he chose to call them.
“I have a good reason for getting in touch.”
“So I should fucking hope.”
“Er, the thing is, I thought you should know, a house on the West Bank was raided by our forces a couple of days ago following a tipoff. We found a prisoner there.”
“Levi?” Raoul asked, hope flaring.
“Negative. The prisoner was a woman. She doesn’t remember anything about how she got there, or anything much at all, but…well—” Pool noisily cleared his throat. Raoul flashed a look at Zeke, who appeared equally bewildered. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but our people on the ground think it might be your wife.”
Raoul, who had withstood a week’s torture at the hands of the freedom fighters and barely shown any reaction, felt his legs give way beneath him. He fell into a chair and shared an astounded glance with Zeke. It couldn’t possibly be true. He’d seen her dead body with his own eyes, albeit on a computer, but he knew enough about death not to be fooled by a ruse. Didn’t he?
“Is this some sort of sick joke?” He growled.
“I don’t expect you to believe this, but I feel real bad about what happened to you guys, and to your wife, Washington. I wouldn’t have made this call unless we had good reason to hope.”
“You met her often enough,” Raoul said. “Surely you would know if it’s her.”
“I think it is, but she’s been through a rough time and, if it is her, her appearance has changed a lot.”
“Fuck!” Raoul muttered.
“You say she doesn’t remember anything,” Zeke said.
“Not even her name. But she keeps mumbling something that sounds like your name, Washington.”
“She says Raoul?”
“Far as we can make out. And Ze.” The guys shared another protracted look. Raoul didn’t want to get his hopes up, because he didn’t think he could stand the pain of disappointment. Even so, a gasp caught in his throat, while his heart thumped faster than his pulse. Cantara’s pet name for Zeke was Ze. “She’s sedated, a bit delirious, but our people are sure she’s muttered the word Wyoming once or twice.”
Even Zeke’s swarthy complexion had paled. “Do you have a picture?” he asked Pool.
“Yeah, but like I say, she—”
“Send it to us right now!” Raoul yelled.
Raoul and Zeke stood by their computer, trembling with a combination of anxiety and anticipation as they waited for the picture to come through. Zeke muttered a few words in the Arapahoan language. Raoul merely muttered as he twisted the fingers of both hands together so tightly they were in danger of dislocating.
“If this is a wind-up, I’ll go to the Pentagon and this time you would be able to stop me from breaking his miserable fucking neck.” He growled.
“You’ll need to stand in line, bud.”
“Shit, what’s taking so long?” Raoul glared at his computer, willing the e-mail to come in. “This waiting is fucking killing me.”
“Do you really think it could be her?” Zeke asked.
“I honestly don’t know.” Raoul shook his head, wondering now if his especially vivid dream was attributable to more than just the dateline. If his sixth sense had picked up on something, why the fuck had it waited so long? He hadn’t doubted for a moment that Cantara was dead. “That video we saw looked real to me, but…hell, it never even occurred to me to think she could still be alive. The Israelis raided the place where we were held and it was deserted, no sign of her, and nothing to lend a clue as who it was who’d been there.”
“That’s what they told us.” Zeke growled. “Perhaps we were too trusting.”
“Fuck, I never would have left the region if I’d had the slightest inkling she might still be alive.”
“Me neither.”
Raoul ploughed a hand through his hair, calling himself all sorts of an idiot. “How could we not have thought about it, Zeke? Asked more questions? Probed more deeply? We’re supposed to be highly-trained professionals. It’s what professionals do. They question everything.”
“I don’t know why we didn’t do that, buddy. We were pretty psyched up with grief, I guess, and actually believed what we were told. We ought to have known better, but we also knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if they even suspected something was off about her.” He shrugged. “If they somehow found out the two of you were married, that would be enough—”
“Shit!”
“Right, we believed our own hype. We made a rookie error. If it is her.”
“You think the brass knew and didn’t tell us?” Raoul asked, gripped by a murderous rage.
“Dunno. It would account for why they let us get out before our time, I guess.”
“They didn’t want us around to ask awkward questions.”
“Yeah, most likely.” Zeke looked as bewildered as Raoul felt. “Still, first things first. Let’s not get our hopes up, but we do need to know if it’s her.”
“Yeah, we do.” Raoul tapped his foot, praying to a God he didn’t believe in to give him a second chance. His vivid dream was still with him—her beautiful sloping eyes alig
ht with passion, a sultry smile playing about her lips as he threatened to whip her ass…damn it, was that why he hadn’t been able to let go? Had he known, on some visceral level that she was still alive? If she was. “Come on, come on, what’s keeping him from sending that damned picture?”
An e-mail popped up in Raoul’s inbox just as the words slipped past his lips. Both men paused when they saw it was the one they were waiting for. Raoul’s hand was shaking as he clicked the button to open it. He exchanged a glance with Zeke as his finger hovered over the attachment.
“You ready for this?” Raoul asked.
“I’ve been ready for three years. I guess I just didn’t realize it.”
“Me neither.”
Raoul drew in a ragged breath and opened the attachment. As he did so he looked at Zeke, rather than the image that sprang to the screen. Zeke was looking right back at him, obviously too scared to have his hopes dashed, too.
“Together,” Raoul said softly.
Zeke nodded, took his own turn to inflate his lungs and together they looked down at the screen, from which the face of a gaunt female stared back at him. A defeated female who was a total stranger to Raoul. The disappointment was so intense that he was unsure if he could withstand it.
To distract himself, he took another look, trying to find some empathy for all this poor woman had obviously suffered. She had dull green eyes that sloped, high cheekbones that jutted, a cute turned-up nose. Raoul’s breathing hitched. He had kissed that nose more times than he could recall. She looked half-dead, haunted by a thousand demons, suffering and deprivation evidenced in her expression. But now that Raoul was looking properly, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t known her immediately.
The love of their life was alive!
“It’s her,” they said together. “No question.”
Chapter Six
“It’s her,” Raoul repeated into the still open phone line. His voice sounded as raw as his emotional state. “Where is she now?”
“In a medical facility in Israel.”
“We’re going out there.”
“No need, she’s fit enough to come home. I needed to be sure she is who I thought she was before I got her back stateside. Now that I am sure, I’ll make arrangements for her to be flown into Andrews.”
“We want to be there.”
“Understood. I’ll call you right back.”
Raoul and Zeke slumped at the kitchen table. Both of them had moist eyes. Raoul felt overwhelmed by joy, panic, but most of all, guilt.
“We let her down, bud.” Raoul shook his head. “We made a basic stupid fucking mistake. We believed what we were shown and left her to suffer in some hellhole all this time.” He crashed his fist against the granite surface. “Fuck! I hate to say it but that asshole Pool was probably right to say we were too close to her to be objective. If it had been anyone else, would we have believed that video?”
“Yep, most likely.” Zeke nodded emphatically. “Even if we didn’t, we would have known there was fuck all we could do to pull her out.”
Raoul scowled at his buddy. “You might not have been able to, but—”
“Let’s just enjoy knowing she’s alive for now,” Zeke replied in a placating tone. “There’ll be plenty of time for recriminations later.”
“Yeah, she’s alive, but has lost her memory.”
“She hasn’t forgotten our names,” Zeke pointed out. “That’s just typical of our little gal, if you ask me.”
Raoul managed a grim smile. “I can’t bear to think about what she’s been through. It makes me feel like such a fucking failure.” He raked a hand through his hair. “She clung on to our names, but shut everything else out, and yet we had no idea. Not a fucking clue. We should have known she was alive. She’s our soul mate.” He glanced at a framed picture of the three of them on their wedding day that he kept beside his computer. The guys were suited and booted, each with an arm around Cantara’s slim waist. The bride looked radiant, smiling widely as she clutched a tacky balloon she had refused to part with all day proclaiming her to be just married. “Damn it, we should have sensed it.”
“Perhaps we did, which is why we’ve never been able to move on.”
“Yeah, could be, but we never would have hung around here if we’d known she was still in Palestine.”
“Damn straight we wouldn’t have, but we can’t change the past. All we can do now is concentrate on getting Cantara home and making sure she has the very best of everything.”
“We need to find a neurologist for her. The very best there is.”
“That we can do.” Zeke stood up, pulled Raoul to his feet, and engulfed him in a man-hug. “She’s alive, bud. We’ll get her back and we’ll spend every dime it takes to get her well. Focus on that.”
Raoul slapped Zeke’s shoulder. “Count on it.”
Raoul picked up the phone and called the local airfield. “Get the plane fuelled up, Pete,” he told the guy who answered. “We’ll be taking off for a while, probably this afternoon.”
“They’ll never let us land the Lear at Andrews,” Zeke pointed out when Raoul hung up.
“No, I’m fixing to fly us into Dulles.”
“Good idea, but bear in mind they might not even let us move Cantara out. They’ll wanna hold on to her.”
“They’re welcome to try.” Raoul growled. “I ain’t leaving her. Not again. If she’s well enough to fly all the way from Israel, she sure as hell is well enough to come back here, where we can look after her right.”
“I’ll start looking for a neurologist,” Zeke said, firing up his own computer.
“When we know what specialist needs she has we can arrange for nurses, if necessary.” Raoul picked up the phone to call Dulles, making arrangements to fly their jet into the private area of the busy airport. They were given clearance to land at six that evening.
“Okay, I’ve found the guy we need. The neurologist. I’m gonna call his office now.”
“Not much point until we know when we can get Cantara to see him,” Raoul replied. “Just see how available he is. See if we can get him on standby. Don’t care what it costs.”
Zeke used his charm on the doctor’s receptionist and actually managed to get to talk to the man himself.
“He sounds intrigued by Cantara’s case,” Zeke said when he hung up. “He promises to be available the moment we get her here.”
“Good to know.”
“Dulles is eighteen hundred miles,” Zeke said, doing the calculations in his head. “Even easing back on the throttles we can do it in four hours, easy.”
“Right. We’ll grab a hotel tonight and be at the base in good time tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Zeke sat down, stretched his long legs out and planted his feet on Raoul’s desk.
“How do you manage to stay to calm?” Raoul demanded to know.
“There are colors and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone,” Zeke replied cryptically.
Raoul shot him a look. There was no getting through to Zeke when he went all Zen on him. He paced the length of the room repeatedly, his mind whirling, his emotions on overload. Cantara was alive! She was alive. He repeatedly looked at her gaunt image on his computer screen, becoming more agitated by the minute. Zeke, on the other hand, appeared to fall asleep, but Raoul knew he would be feeling every bit as anxious. He was just better at covering it.
Time seemed to stand still as they waited for Pool to call them back with details.
“Come on, what the fuck’s the holdup?” Raoul demanded to know.
“Red tape, a million forms, logistics.” Zeke opened one eye and shrugged. “You know how it is.”
“Don’t I just.”
Two hours later, the phone finally rang again.
“She’ll be arriving at Andrews fourteen hundred hours tomorrow.”
“We’ll be there. Get us clearance.”
“Do you need transport from the airport?”
&nbs
p; “No, we’ll make our own way.”
“Er, Washington, don’t expect too much.”
Raoul’s body stiffened. “You know something more about her prognosis?”
“No, you know as much as I do.” That’ll be a first. “I’m just saying, that people who have been held captive for a long time, especially if they’ve experienced a head injury…well, they’re not always the same afterwards.”
“What do you know about where she was held and by whom?”
“We’ll talk in person.”
“You’ll be there tomorrow? No more sandbagging, Pool. We need some answers.”
“I’ll be there. Call me if you need anything before then and I’ll make it happen.”
“Better late than fucking never,” Raoul muttered as he input Pool’s private number into his cell and cut the connection. “Why do I still not trust that jerk?”
“Because he’s still the same old bundle of joy.”
“He knows a damned sight more than he’s letting on. He always has, and we let him cut us out.” Raoul flexed his rigid jaw. “Those days are over.”
“I hear you, pal. I hear you.” Zeke elevated himself effortlessly from his prone position and landed soundlessly on his feet. “Come on, bud. We don’t know how long we’ll be away for. We need to make arrangements.”
They cut across the back of their ranch, to the converted barn occupied by Mark and Karl, two more ex Green Berets. They ran the day-to-day side of the Clandestine Agency’s business from living quarters stuffed to the brim with state of the art equipment—some of it actually legal. They could trace just about anything that moved, and hack into almost any system known to man. Oh, and in their spare time they acted as ranch hands.
“What’s up, guys?” Karl asked as Raoul and Zeke strolled into their domain.
“We’re gonna be gone a few days,” Raoul replied.
“Okay, there’s nothing we can’t handle going on right now.”
“Going somewhere nice?” Mark asked.
“Kinda.”
Both guys looked stunned when Raoul told them. “She’s alive? Shit, man, that’s great!” Karl said, leaping to his feet and shaking both their hands. The guys were also into the ménage scene and knew what Cantara had meant to Raoul and Zeke. “Get out of here and leave the grunt work to us.”
