Free Fall (23 page)

Her cell phone vibrated on the bedside table.

She reached behind her quickly, not wanting the sound to wake Jose. Only numbers flashed on the screen, numbers that were code for Agent Smith. Thumbing the on button, she shot to her feet, her legs tangling in the trailing fabric as she made her way to the bathroom.

“Yes?”

“We need you to report back, now,” Mr. Smith said with a tense edge that sent a bolt of fear straight through her. This man never lost his cool. Never. “Sutton Harper committed suicide in his holding cell…”

“What? Repeat that, please?” Shock iced through her—and surprise. She’d been trained to look for signs and Sutton had seemed more the type who would shout his ideology from a jail cell for years to come…

“Harper cut the femoral artery in his thigh. He bled out before anyone noticed.”

An injury like that would kill in about five minutes. Her head reeled with the image as she grappled with the need to make sense…

“Carson, we’ll deal with the ramification of that later. There’s more. Top priority and the primary reason for my call? The list is on the move. We have less than twelve hours to stop the transfer and find those responsible so this kind of leak doesn’t happen again. I repeat…”

“Got it. I’m on my way.” She disconnected, forcing her training to assume control, an icy focus sliding into place.

They had a lead—and twelve hours to stop the exposure of American agents across Africa and the Middle East. Twelve hours to catch those responsible in the act so every agent wasn’t compromised. Twelve hours to protect an intelligence network decades in the making—a network that had somehow failed her mother. Stella pushed that thought aside as she slid back into the hotel room, trying to decide whether to wake Jose or leave him a note.

Moot point. He already sat on the edge of the bed, his phone at his ear and from the narrowed look in his eyes, he’d just gotten the same recall.

Déjà vu swelled over Annie in waves, as potently and vaguely nauseating as the scent of jet fuel in the back of the cargo craft. She’d ridden in countless military transports during her days as a field operative, slipping in and out of countries. Once she’d gone undercover, people hadn’t suspected the motherly looking aid worker.

At least not at first.

Even now that her new identity had been ripped from her, she couldn’t just become Melanie again—she still thought of herself as Annie,
felt
like Annie. For fourteen years, she’d lived as Annie Johnson, a widowed teacher who poured her energies into her work and her orphaned students. Severing all ties to Melanie Carson had been the only way for her to survive. The only way to keep her sanity after her world exploded. Now, somehow, her real identity had been exposed. Her life could be in danger. Her family’s lives could be in jeopardy because of her, even after all she’d sacrificed to keep them safe.

Her worst nightmare had come true.

And the only person she could count on was the man sitting next to her, a man who’d apparently lied to her every day for the past year.

Samir Al-Shennawi.

Looking through her lashes, she checked on him sitting next to her and thought of that horrible moment of disillusionment when he’d announced he’d been spying on her the whole time. The way she’d done in her former life as an operative. She’d understood the truth of his mission faster than most people might have in her shoes since she’d lived it often enough. That hadn’t made it hurt any less. But Samir had all the proper credentials. Intelligence authorities had contacted her and verified his story.

This CV-22 aircraft packed with U.S. troops erased any lingering doubts. Red lights tracked overhead with a hazy glow over people and gear. The nightmare was real, even though everyone around her seemed at ease when her world had been turned upside down. Soldiers slept and listened to music and zoned out with eReaders. Apparently they were on their way to an American base in Somalia where she would be protected until they decided where to relocate her. Starting all over again at fifty-eight? Saying good-bye to another man…

She swept a glance at Sam again, engines droning, filling the cavernous hold until noises from others faded away.

He met her accusatory look without flinching, already assuming a bolder persona than before, his shoulders broader, his strong chin tipped up rather than tucked down. “I understand that you are angry with me.”

“Why should I be mad?” Pride kept her spine straight and her voice steady.

“I lied to you for a year.”

Damn straight he had. But at least he’d been on the side of a friendly government. What if he hadn’t, and she’d missed the signs that he was working undercover? The children could have been in danger and she was losing her touch.

Yet, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her wince. “You had a job to do. Believe me, I understand all about lying in the line of duty.”

Although she’d sure as hell never kissed anyone while undercover. Did he think he was some kind of Egyptian James Bond?

“Yes, my job was to watch over you, although I am not technically a field agent of your level—or rather, your previous level.” He sounded so believable, so earnest. “I am a scientist and a teacher. Traveling for my job has facilitated my ability to go where I’m needed. Our governments worked together through different intelligence agencies to protect assets. Very simple.”

Could she believe him? Buried professional instincts fired to life and she studied his every move, twitch, and blink. Maybe Melanie Carson wasn’t buried as deeply as she thought. “Why did they decide to start watching me this year?”

“You have been watched since the day you assumed the new identity.”

His words spoken so matter-of-factly rang true and stunned her silent until a turbulent bump jostled her.
Fourteen
years.

“This whole time? Who?” She searched her mind for all the faces and clues she must have missed. What if someone had been trying to kill her? Would she have seen it coming? And there wasn’t a thing she could do about it now except be glad she hadn’t exposed her family to the risk. “Teachers or janitors… I guess it’s all in the past now. They don’t matter, although I don’t understand why I matter.”

“Melanie…”

“Call me Annie,” she said quickly, needing that separation from the past. “That’s who I am now. At least they gave me a name that had a part of the old me…” Oh God, she hadn’t even considered… “What about you? Is Samir your real name?”

“It is.”

Would he even tell her if it wasn’t? His eyes looked honest, familiar.

Enticing.

Damn it. “I feel like I don’t know anything about you, although I guess you know everything about me.”

“The facts.” He tapped his glasses in place. “That’s all.”

“That’s
all
?” She laughed—at herself and her whole messed up life. “That’s everything.”

The more she thought about it, the more frustrated she felt, even violated. Yet, she’d given up her right to privacy when she’d willingly signed on with the CIA.

Sam tipped his head to the side, his eyes curious behind those round glasses. He sat with a zen kind of stillness, but with an edge now. “There are many things I do not know, things I have wondered about you but was not free to ask.”

“Such as?”

“What led you to this line of work?”

It had been so long since she made the decision, sometimes she couldn’t remember either. She toyed with a bead bracelet Khaali had made in art class and given to her as a gift. “How does anyone land a job? You pursue what you want to do with your life.”

“You just walked up to the CIA and asked to be an operative?”

Memories started flooding back. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about these things in so long. In the beginning, it had been a matter of survival. Eventually, it had become habit.

“Freelancer. Off the books.” At first, but once she’d gotten a taste, she wanted in deeper, envisioned herself changing the world. “I was already active in the area. The aide work was real, not a cover, not in the beginning. After my husband and I graduated from college, we joined the Peace Corps. When our oldest son was born, we tried to keep up the lifestyle, the work. And we managed pretty well even through the birth of our second child—both were born here in Africa.”

Her heart ached with memories—the visions of their infant faces, the smell of baby shampoo, the feel of a tiny cheek resting against her chest. She’d tried so hard to be a good mother in spite of feeling ripped in two by a call to action against injustice.

“We had only been back in the States for a few months when the CIA approached us, just a short-term freelancing assignment. My parents helped with the children. And God, we enjoyed it, the adrenaline rush of making a difference in what felt like an even bigger way.” Although in the end she’d felt like such a fool for not realizing the mammoth gift of a sticky hug from her child. She’d learned too late to appreciate what she’d lost.

“What changed?” he asked, even though he had to know from her file.

Still, it felt good to talk about the past, not to guard every word out of her mouth. “We found out I was pregnant again. My husband said he wasn’t into the whole ‘Kumbaya’ lifestyle anymore. He wanted a regular roof over our heads and meals at a family table.”

“So you relocated back to the States permanently.”

“We did. I went back to work in the classroom, had another child, our only girl. And I tried, I really tried to tell myself I could wait until the children grew up to help over here…”

An air crewman walked by on his way to the back and she paused until he passed.

“Until one day,” she continued, “during a parent-teacher conference, I was talking to a student’s mother and she mentioned her husband’s work overseas. He was in the Army. For weeks I thought about that father fulfilling his call to serve, and I couldn’t deny the strong desire I felt to go back again. I needed to make a difference in the world.”

“What did your… husband say?”

She tried not to read too much into the way he seemed to stumble over the word
husband
. She was overanalyzing, just wishful thinking.

“He told me I was being selfish. That I was screwing up our family, that I was breaking the agreement we’d made when we got married.” That awful argument, the rage in his voice, the pain she’d caused, all came back to her as real as if she’d just walked out the door of their little red brick house. “We’d promised each other we were a team. Where one went, the other would go.”

“Yet you left anyway.”

After all the angry—but logical words—he’d shouted at her, it was the strangled pain in his final question that haunted her most to this day.
Who
the
fuck’s gonna braid Stella’s hair?

“Freelancing was our compromise.” A brittle peace settled between them. “I wouldn’t take it on as a full-time job.”

“He was not happy.”

Not by a long shot. “Neither of us was, but we made it work until Stella was fifteen.”

“And then you ‘died.’”

There was an implied question in his tone she couldn’t miss. How did Sam manage to get her to share so much so quickly when by all rights she should still be reeling from the hurt of how he’d played her? Maybe a part of her believed she deserved any and every bad thing that came her way as retribution for the pain she’d caused her family.

“You’re wondering if I used my faked death as an out to abandon my family.”

“I did not say that.” But still the hint of a question remained.

Although oddly, she found no condemnation. Either he really didn’t blame her—or he was that good of an actor. With nothing to lose anymore, she kept on talking, needing to pour out the words she’d kept bottled inside for so many years.

“But you’re thinking it. Believe me, I’ve questioned myself on that more times than I can count. In my head I know I didn’t have a choice. My identity had been compromised in a major way in southern Africa, and I needed to assume a new life to keep my family safe.”

She’d opted to stay in Africa for two reasons. She wanted to minimize the temptation to seek out her family anyway, even for a glimpse. And she still wanted to help. Funny how in the end she’d found returning to her roots in more of a teaching and aide manner brought her far more satisfaction than any large-scale mission.

Sam nodded slowly as if processing. “Annie Johnson was born.”

“Such an innocuous name… Smith. Jones. Brown. Johnson. Jane or Anne or Mary. I could take my pick mixing and matching.”

“Why did you choose to leave your family behind? It is my understanding witness protection will keep a family together.”

His words made her realize she cared what he thought of her, deeply. She wanted him to know she’d truly tried her best. “My sons were already heading off to college. And my daughter… I had to keep her safe. Staying out of all their lives was the best way to do that.” But in her heart she’d harbored doubts. Even though she’d missed them every single day, she feared that she’d made a selfish choice to stay in Africa. Life wasn’t clear-cut with simple answers. But she’d known one thing for certain. Living on the run? That was no life for a child.

“And your husband agreed?” Sam’s stern tone made it clear he wouldn’t have made the same call.

Something stirred in her stomach, something that felt strangely like… butterflies? At her age? Just because this man hinted with a tone of his voice that he would have fought to keep her?

She hadn’t given her husband that chance because she’d already known his answer. He loved her, but he would have let her go, given the choice. So she’d saved him the pain of deciding. “He was told I was dead. The agency even found an unclaimed body at the morgue that looked enough like me and with such extensive injuries to that body, no one looked too close or questioned. That was for the best. I didn’t want to tie up his life with my mistakes. The agency assured me that I was dead, legally, so there were no repercussions if he decided to remarry…”

Except he hadn’t. The agency had told her that much in one of the few times they’d contacted her—after his death. She had mourned him despite all the ways they’d hurt each other. Mourned the lost chance at happiness they might have had together bringing up their children. They’d shared some big dreams at one time, but somewhere along the way they’d drifted apart. Still, she had grieved for all he’d given up for her and all the ways he’d carried on without her. She’d owed him better.

But that was in the past. Annie Johnson’s quiet life of hard work had been part of her healing.

Sam folded his arms over his chest, his face foreboding in the hazy red glow of the lights lining the ceiling. “I would not want those choices made for me without my consent.”

The censure in his voice set her on the defensive. “I did the best I could then… Would I make the same choices now? I don’t know. At the time, I was in so much pain…”

“Pain?” His arms slid down, his judgmental air easing.

“My cover was blown when I was kidnapped along with two others I worked with. The local warlord who took us had international black market connections. He was an evil man and…” She forced her voice to stay steady. “He was a harsh interrogator.” He was a rapist. “The other woman in our group broke, told him everything.”

She’d been damn close to breaking as well. When she’d thought she couldn’t take anymore, she’d found an opening to kill the lead interrogator. She’d escaped with the other remaining hostage.

As she thought back to those harrowing moments, she realized he hadn’t said anything.

“Didn’t my file mention any of that?”

She could read in his eyes that it had. A fast pulse throbbed in his temple, his fists clenched as he just let her talk. He’d somehow known she needed to share all of this that she hadn’t been allowed to discuss with anyone.

Had he kept things so platonic between them for so long because he worried about her?

Or because he saw her as defiled? She’d thought he was holding back from physically comforting her now to give her space… That he might see her as untouchable…? That thought was beyond bearing.