SLEEPER (Crossfire Series) (31 page)

She recalled those looks they’d given to each other in the big van. Had she imagined it or had they been warning looks? Maybe they were lovers too and Nikki was worried how intimate Lily and Reed were. Of course, if the situation had been reversed, Reed would have been a dead man already. Lily wasn’t that sharing a person.

“Nikki works for an agency called GEM. I’m on a SEAL team that’s part of a joint venture with it. We’ve been targeting this weapon you have for months now.”

“Hawk McMillan’s on your team,” she said.

“He’s my commander,” Reed acknowledged. “He was too injured to continue with the mission.”

Lily bent her head. Hawk must have been more injured than she’d thought when he’d gone off to save Amber. Another person she’d inadvertently caused pain.

“What do I do?” she asked resignedly. She had to make things right somehow. These people had a mission and she had been in the way. Now they were taking over her problems without even making sure she really had the weapon. “I’ll give you the device now. It’s safer out of my hands anyway.”

His hand caressed her face, and she resisted the urge to turn to seek comfort. When had she gotten to need him so much?

“There are people over my head who will be reading debriefings and reports after this,” Reed said softly. “An act of faith on your part will show them you weren’t against them.”

She pursed her lips, then met his eyes determinedly. He saw too damned much. She knew he could see all the feelings she was trying so hard to hide, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“I don’t hold you responsible for what you did,” he said. “A group of people inside the CIA took advantage of you. You weren’t given a choice in this, so don’t beat yourself up because of it. I know what it’s like to wake up and have the whole world as you know it taken away from you, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It’s still you inside.”

He tapped his forehead, mimicking the way she’d done it to herself earlier. There was a hint of emotion in his gray eyes which were usually so unfathomable. He spoke with the sincerity of someone who had gone through a similar pain. She cocked her head.

“I want to know one thing. Who betrayed you?” she asked quietly.

For one heart-stopping moment she thought he would refuse to answer her. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“My mother,” he said quietly. “You’ve seen how she is. When she’s without her medication, her behavior becomes more erratic, to the point where she has disappeared for weeks. Before she was diagnosed as bi-polar, she did exactly that. When she returned, she was pregnant. With me.”

She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected that. “You mean, your mother was…raped?”

He shook his head. “Nothing that melodramatic. My guess is she met somebody who made her forget whatever it was she was trying to run from. It’s hard to explain, Lily. She just did it and then she came home. I was born and didn’t know about this till I hurt myself surfing one day and needed a blood transfusion.” He fell silent for a second, then continued. “Things became clearer after that incident. I never understood why my father always seemed to avoid looking at or talking to me. It was always ‘your mother’ or ‘your son’ in the conversations.”

“I’m sorry, Reed,” Lily said. “I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to tell me your family secrets.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, I want you to know. It’s not as devastating as being implanted with subconscious triggers, but I want you to see I understand about deception and how it can hurt when you know you’re the cause of it. Father took care of me like I’m his, but there was always something missing. He loves my mother very much, and I think he’s forgiven her for what she did, but I was a physical reminder of it every day, so he avoided me. I made it easier for him after I found out the truth. I drifted away. I joined the Navy and seldom returned home. I haven’t gone into the family business. My two other brothers—half brothers, I should say—are probably relieved I haven’t.”

He shrugged and scratched the back of his head, as if he was a little embarrassed at how much he’d revealed. This was probably the most she’d ever heard him talk. A lot of things made sense now. His adamancy about protection. His aloneness.

CHAPTER 18

Time seemed to speed up when one was no longer alone. Lily looked around her, feeling a little bewildered. Reed had gotten the call to meet up, and they’d driven to a location just outside the city. It’d looked like a factory from the outside, but once they’d driven through the fenced yard and into a warehouse, the door had slammed behind the car and everything had gone black.

She heard a loud humming, and everything vibrated as the bottom of the car moved. It was, she realized, some kind of lift. They were going underground.

“You okay?” Reed asked.

“I think so,” she said. “I thought we were going to the place where Gunther Galbert wanted me to meet him.”

“Not yet. We have a team here and everyone needs to be on the same page, including you.” The lights came on. “Come on, everything’s going to be all right.”

Lily got out of the car and followed Reed. There were armed men, dressed in black, none of whom were paying attention to her as they moved things around the meeting room. Nikki came in from the other door, also dressed in black. She was talking to someone using a wireless mic. She waved at Reed.

Reed set his weapon bag on the floor by the table and went to pull up some chairs. Lily looked at the charts stuck on a board. Maps. A picture of the car in which she was last seen. There was one of it now—a total wreck.

Lily scowled. She’d released the brakes and let the car roll off the cliff that night. She hadn’t gone very far, had she? All these months—these people had been following her moves, anticipating her decisions, trying to figure her out, and she’d thought she’d been all alone.

She turned away from a photo of herself and froze. Amber was walking toward her. Her former friend didn’t look angry, like Lily had thought she would. She should be. If it’d been the other way around and it had been Amber who’d betrayed their friendship like Lily had, Lily would have taken a gun right now and shot Amber. She took a deep breath. Released it.

They stood several feet apart. The commotion in the room seemed to recede into the background. Lily didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t thought she’d ever meet Amber again. She’d drugged and given her friend to an enemy. Saying sorry was quite inadequate.

“Nothing I say will ever erase what I did. You can do whatever you want to me after this,” Lily finally said, “but only after the girls are safe. They don’t know what happened, so please—”

She stopped. Please…what? Please don’t tell them? She deserved every bit of hatred from everyone for what she’d done. She wouldn’t plead for herself.

“They’re my girls too, Lily,” Amber said. Her eyes always turned an intense blue when she was emotional about something, and Lily could see the tears she was holding back. “We don’t have time to talk now, but I want you to know I’m still your friend.”

Lily stared at Amber. “Don’t say you forgive me,” she whispered. “It’ll make me feel worse. I much, much prefer hatred. Do something. Hit me.”

“Too bad. I’m a missionary’s daughter, remember?” Amber gave her a small smile. “I know what’s on your mind. I’m okay. Hawk came in time.”

Lily closed her eyes. Night after night she’d imagined the worst to punish herself, that Hawk had rescued Amber after she’d been tortured and used by Dilaver and his men. She’d returned to the city to get the girls that night and had heard the huge firefight going on. Later, she’d gotten news about people being flown to another base because of injuries. And she’d known it had to be Hawk and Amber.

“It doesn’t hurt any less,” she said. She opened her eyes. “You were my best friend and I loved you like a sister. I can’t explain how I could just suddenly forget that and let someone order me around. I can’t forgive myself for not having put up a fight. I keep thinking a part of me would recognize I was hurting you, but—”

She stared down at her clenched fists. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe she’d done what she did.

“I’ve done a lot of research on what they did to you, Lily. I’d to because I couldn’t believe you could have done that to me willingly. And you did put up a fight. You drugged me, remember? You told me you didn’t want me to go through the whole thing conscious. Part of you didn’t want to hurt me.”

Lily glared at her friend. “Don’t give me the easy way out, please,” she exclaimed. “You’re supposed to yell and call me names. Kick the shit out of me. Tell me not to ever come near you again.”

“First you’re going to have to endure a hug,” Amber told her.

Lily shook her head and backed away. “Don’t,” she said.

Amber calmly came to her and put her arms around her. The hug turned fierce. Lily swallowed back the tears stuck in her throat. “I’ve been friends with the real Lily for four years and she’s the most generous woman I’ve ever known. She did everything for a bunch of girls who had nowhere and no one to turn to. You don’t think, when she has no one now, I would abandon her, do you?”

Lily could only hold on, her heart in her throat. She looked over Amber’s shoulder. Reed stood by the table, quietly taking in the whole scene. His eyes were just as intense as he studied her reaction to meeting Amber.

She realized now he must know about Amber and her friendship. He’d asked her many questions about her past. It must have been part of his assignment, to find out how much she remembered. But he’d never pressed her about Amber or her betrayal in any way. He’d understood her pain and had respected it.

“You ready to go get our girls?” Amber asked, letting her go.

Lily took a deep breath. “Yes.” There would be time later to talk.

Reed straightened and came to join them. “Lily’s given me the location where she’s hidden the device,” he said, his eyes never leaving Lily’s. “We’ve to pick it up before the meeting with Gunther.”

“For being a friend.” She wanted to kiss him. She was beginning to realize it mattered to her that he saw her in a good light, that he didn’t think she was a traitor. “For taking care of me.”

His serious expression softened. “It’s becoming a habit. I think I deserve a hug too.”

In spite of the tension of the moment, Lily found herself smiling back at Reed. “Later,” she promised.

* * *

Greta inserted the decoder into the USB port on the laptop and clicked the ‘Run’ command. Gunther had told her that tonight would be the big one, when they would get their hands on both the weapons device and Llallana Noretski.

She didn’t care about the girl so much. That was Gunther’s thing, even though the project sounded intriguing. But after giving it some thought, she’d rejected the notion of a true alliance. No, this would be her little revenge for the problems he’d caused her. The most satisfying part was getting rid of the guards he’d put in his house. As if they could stop her!

First, and most important of all, she was going to deliver the weapon to Headquarters. That was her original order and she was going to stick to it. Deviating from it seemed wrong, especially when she was so close to finally being home. Why throw it all away because of ambition?

Gunther would have those girls. That ought to placate him. Or she could get Talia to do that. She seemed to get along with him so well.

A part of her was a little jealous. If she were ten years younger, Gunther would be paying her the same attention. She wasn’t beautiful like her niece, but she had her ways with men. She’d always been able to get any man she’d wanted. She touched her face.

Maybe a little face-lift by the surgeon who had redone Talia’s face. Why not? It’d be a great second celebratory present for her retirement. Her first one would be getting the device, of course.

Greta picked up her cell phone and called Talia. She inspected one chipped finger nail.

“There’s no problem at my end. I found the tampon in the wastebasket. Ingenious. Gunth didn’t check your handbag thoroughly enough,” Greta said. There was half a micro-drive hidden in the cotton. It fit into another part that was in another tampon Talia had handed to her. Together, once inserted into the USB port of a computer, it would upload and download information like a flash drive. Quite an amazing gadget. “I’m downloading what I’ve taken from his house to your network now.”

“Good. With the layout, we won’t have any problems going straight in and getting what we want,” Talia said.