Red Midnight (36 page)

An avalanche of pain cascaded over Erin, so gripping that she had to will herself not to double over. Of course, she told herself, it
was
all over. Last night had not been a dream; Jarod knew now that she wasn’t a spy, nor could she be used by a spy, and so he was sending her home earlier than he had promised. Fast. No more discussions, no more arguments, no more clashes or agonizing encounters. Just a clean split. And how convenient to pass the chance of getting her home on to Mary and Ted.

“Erin, are you all right?”

“Fine,” she assured Mary, “just tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. Where is Jarod?”

“Loading the car with Ted. He said for me to let you sleep to the last minute, then help you get some things together. And you’re not to worry about packing—he’ll send whatever you leave.”

For a moment she thought she would be sick. She clenched her jaws together, swallowed and nodded, and crawled from the bed, somewhat surprised to find herself clad in only lace bikinis and matching bra. She didn’t remember undressing; in fact, she barely remembered making it up the stairs.

“What’s wrong, Erin? I thought you’d be happy about traveling with us.”

“Oh, I am, Mary!” Erin forced some cheer into her voice. “Very glad. How much time do I have? Enough to jump in the shower?”

“Sure—I’ll gather a few of your things.”

Twenty minutes later she was ready to go downstairs. She had managed to apply her makeup with enough expertise to hide her sleeplessness and misery while still appearing natural; her hair was swept into a strict and sophisticated chignon. In a tailored spring business suit with a powder blue Gant and wide ascot, she felt as if she could uphold her dignity even when she had to face him.

Which happened immediately following her first sip of coffee. He entered the hallway and caught her eyes across the living room. There was an anxious cast to his eyes, as if he were about to ask her a question. But she stiffened automatically at the sight of him, and the strange, almost tentative cast in the glacial blue disappeared.

“You’re ready, I see.”

“Most certainly,” Erin replied crisply. “I wouldn’t take the slightest chance of missing such an opportunity.”

He nodded briefly. Hers was the only case not set in the trunk of the car. His broad shoulders encased in a tan spring jacket bunched as he reached for it. Erin noticed with a pang how vividly the silver threaded jet of his lowered head contrasted with and complemented the cool shade of his sports jacket. I’ve never seen him in that jacket, she thought. He had always worn dark clothing, which had also been a complement to his midnight hair and shocking crystal eyes.

The Soviet winter had hung on so long. Now it was really becoming spring, and she was leaving, going home where she wanted to be.

She had dreamed they would go together, but that had been a childish dream. This was life, reality, and it very often held no happy endings.

Erin followed Jarod out of the door.

She sat beside him as they drove to the airport. It was Ted who kept up a conversation with Jarod, making everything seem smooth even though his replies from his host were monosyllables … Jarod’s hand brushed Erin’s as he shifted gears. He gave her an offhand “sorry.”

Then they were at the airport. To Erin’s surprise, she discovered that Tanya and a young man, Sergei and his wife, and Gil Sayer were all there ahead of them, up and out of bed, apparently alerted to the fact that she was leaving, and caring enough to say good-bye.

“Oh, Erin!” It was Tanya who threw her arms around Erin first. “How I am going to miss you! But you will come back—you must! And you must write—it is allowed. And send me pictures.”

Erin hugged Tanya in return, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Oh, Tanya, I will miss you too. So much. And I will write, frequently, I promise.”

Jarod had stepped back to watch as his wife said her good-byes to those to whom she had become close. It was a painful procedure. The liquid silver of her eyes was brilliant and open, alive with caring. Her smile was radiant—for Tanya, for Gil, for Sergei.

He had seen her smile like that; he had heard many times the melody of her laughter. The picnic on the Lenin Hills … sightseeing with Mary and Ted … in the dimness of their bedroom. There had been times when she had been his friend. But she wanted to go home; he could understand the feeling. Perhaps she had learned to care something for him, but that caring couldn’t outweigh the life that was rightfully hers, the excitement and glamour she could return to.

Let her go, he told himself harshly. She had taken his name, but she was still Erin McCabe. He was a public servant, unable to offer much against the world that was hers. Let her go back to pretense and the adulation of those who coveted her sterling qualities.

“This has really turned out so well for Erin!” Mary suddenly sighed beside him.

Jarod glanced down at his wife’s friend. “Oh? Why do you say that?”

“She’s gained so much!” Mary exclaimed, her eyes somewhat misty as she watched Erin with Tanya. Then she gazed up at Jarod. “She wanted to come here in the first place because she hoped to teach political science and history some day—when she can finish her degree. Now she can go back to school and also have all the wonderful experiences with Tanya and Sergei behind her!” Mary’s eyes narrowed suddenly. “Surely you knew that?”

Jarod stiffened slightly. “It’s my understanding that she will pick up with her career as soon as she reaches New York.”

Erin was unaware of the conversation going on near her. When Tanya released her, Gil gripped her next, kissing her cheek. “Don’t forget, gorgeous, if that ‘steel’ hunk of yours over there ever fails you, I’ll still be around. A hemisphere away for the time—but I’ll take your call from anywhere!”

Erin smiled, guilt overwhelming her at the easy way she, too, had been ready to hang Gil on circumstantial evidence. “Thank you, Gil. I won’t ever forget you.”

Sergei’s wife hugged her and tried to say good-bye in proper English, stuttered, and throwing her hands in the air, spattered out her best wishes in Russian. Erin kissed her cheek.

“Sergei would not settle for a simple hug. He slipped his arm through Erin’s and began to lead the group down the hallway to the proper gate. “Take great care, little cousin,” he advised her. “Do nothing rash, and think on the many things I have told you.” He paused for a moment, a mischievous twinkle in his fascinating hazel eyes. “Do you know, Erin, they say that we once had a Romany gypsy in the family. Of course, we don’t often admit such things, but I will now, because I believe I have inherited a bit of the gift of fortune-telling. And if you can be but a bit patient, little cousin, I believe you will find great happiness.”

Erin lowered her lashes with a rueful grimace. “Thank you, Sergei, you’re very kind to me.” She stopped in the hallway and hugged him fiercely for a moment. “You have always been very kind to me.” She grinned. “My Russian cousin, I thank you with all my heart.”

They had reached the concourse gateway; the others were milling close around them, and a voice began announcing the plane. Erin hugged Sergei one more time. “Good-bye, Sergei.”

“We do not say good-bye,” he told her softly. “Do sveedah nyah, Erin, do sveedah nyah.”

“Do sveedah nyah, Sergei,” Erin murmured in return, knowing full well control had broken and that her eyes were misted.

Then she felt a wrench on her arm and she was spun around, and held against Jarod’s chest. She lifted her chin, her eyes meeting his with liquid silver, the pain and reproach and need shimmering through them. He stared down at her a moment; his mouth opened and closed, then crushed down on hers as he held her close, pressing her fingers against the hammer of his heart as his lips consumed her with a wild hunger that combined passion and tenderness, demand and reverence. Erin shuddered against the moist fire of that desperate duel of tongues, wishing desperately that the moment could stretch to eternity.

But the voice was droning on, passengers were boarding the plane.

“You’re not leaving the man forever!” Erin vaguely heard Mary chuckle. “He
is
your husband.”

Jarod withdrew from the kiss. “Come on—I’ll walk you past the inspectors.”

Erin waved a last, painful good-bye to the others, but hurried along with Jarod, eager for any word he might give her.

There was so little time.

“I can’t leave right now,” he explained in a hush as they stopped at the plane’s door. “There are things I have to tie up after last night. But I’ll come to New York as soon as I can. Please hold off making any decisions about anything until I get there.” His voice was crisp. Stilted. The commander giving an order. But it was an order she would cling to, as she had clung to his kiss. An order issued in the husky velvet she had come to love and need.

Erin couldn’t speak. She nodded.

“Promise, Erin.”

Her mouth had become too dry. She couldn’t possibly utter a sound from her parched throat. She nodded once more. Then tried again and rasped out an “I promise.”

And then they were separated. A polite but firm stewardess escorted Erin into the plane, chastising her in no-nonsense language that made its point very clear. She had been holding up their departure.

She hadn’t even really had a last view of him to hold on to in her memory. Just his eyes. They would haunt her for the endless nights to come.

She was glad that she was seated behind Mary and Ted. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to pretend that everything was okay.

Soon after the plane took off, she laid her head back and closed her eyes. Tears slipped from beneath the fringe of her lashes unchecked.

Her eyes were still closed when the Aeroflot jet brought them past the Russian border.

She didn’t know when it was that she left the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics behind, or when if was that she reached the free world. It didn’t matter. It would be another plane, “and another long flight, before she would reach home, and that’s what mattered. Only home could help ease the ache that not only gripped her heart, but seemed to permeate her entire being with loss and pain.

T
HE FIRST FEW WEEKS
hadn’t been terribly difficult for Jarod. He had had a great deal to do and had been able to work from dawn to dusk. But things were just about tied up now. There were problems—daily problems—but Gil had proven himself very capable and very efficient, and Jarod could depend on him to handle whatever might arise.

The spying would go on. The Russians would smile over a negotiation table while their cloak-and-dagger agents worked within the United States. Likewise, the United States would have special CIA agents and others probing the sources of the U.S.S.R. There would be more double agents playing side against side.

But generally they would have a loyalty affixed somewhere. And hopefully, the Russians would no longer have access to the files of the United States embassy, nor would the Americans have the ability to burrow into the Soviet side to upset the balance of power with half truths that could block a negotiation table with a wall of sheer ice.

The spying that would go on now would be the respectable type, Jarod thought dryly, the type that had long been accepted and recognized. A type that he and Sergei would never discuss. The Russian would seek out those who worked for the free world, Jarod would again be protecting the interests of his own country and of the mandates of the U.N. It had been a strange and unusual occurrence for his cousin and himself to be seeking out the same man, working toward a joint goal. But then again maybe not so terribly strange. Perhaps he and Sergei, oceans apart in ideology but close by flesh and blood, did continually seek the same goal—a peaceful coexistence between giants who could not be friends but had to be respectful acquaintances were the world to survive.

Project Midnight was over. Mahoney awaited trial in the United States. The Soviet guard who had been in on the microfilm transference had disappeared. Jarod didn’t want to think about the man’s fate. Sergei—for all his humanity and cultured charm—could be a ruthless man. He had to be. The Politburo allowed no quarter. To hold the vast nation that covered one sixth of the earth’s land surface together, men had long been ruthless, from the czars to the commissars.

Jarod poured himself a third drink in his empty apartment and sauntered idly into the music room. He drained half the bourbon, loosened his tie, and sat down. He picked up the balalaika, a treasured remembrance of his beautiful, soft-spoken but strong-willed mother. He thought of his parents as he strummed a chord. They had defied the laws of man to love one another, and they had carried that love through their lives.

His mother had been an expert musician. His talent was a gift from her. Strange that he had such a way with the instrument. Sergei would give his eye teeth to play half so well.

The apartment was empty without Erin….

He began to play an old Russian folk tune, hoping the music would drown out his thoughts, but nothing could.

He should have gone home a week ago. There was nothing holding him here, and he had promised Erin he would be there soon so that they might settle their lives.

He stopped playing abruptly and drained the rest of his bourbon. He looked at the glass, shrugged, and went to the kitchen to refill it. Maybe the liquor could drown out his thoughts. He hadn’t been good and drunk in years. Strange, but when one was young, liquor could take away sobriety all too easily. Now, when he wanted to fuzz his mind and blot out the world, it seemed impossible to do so.

It seemed to be growing stuffy. He shrugged out of his jacket, threw it haphazardly over a chair, and picked up the balalaika again.

Erin had cared deeply about Tanya, and Tanya was Russian. She even seemed to have created a damned good relationship with Sergei—and hell, one couldn’t be more Russian than Sergei. Did she care what his ancestors had been? He never attempted to hide his parentage—why had he been so elusive each time she had questioned him about the ring? Because she had called him a Red and he had been afraid that if she had known the truth she would have believed her own wild accusation.