Читать книгу Let Me In - Donna Kauffman - Страница 10

Tate made it as far as the kitchen before giving in to the shaking in her knees. She sank down onto a kitchen chair and wrapped trembling hands around the mug of hot tea she’d made herself after coming in from the storm. She let the warmth seep through her skin, willing it to soothe the rest of her.

She shouldn’t let him rattle her. The situation he’d put her in was rattling enough. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was the return of the tension and the adrenaline and the worry that was making her hyper-aware of him in ways she had absolutely no business being. Of course, he’d never been in her home before, much less in her bed, so she could probably be forgiven for having a few wayward thoughts. Which didn’t explain why that awareness had begun when he’d still been lying half-conscious on the floor inside her front door.

It was the situation, that was all. She took a fortifying sip of tea, then swore silently when it burned the tip of her tongue. She had to get her wits about her if she was going to reclaim her life and get him and whatever he’d brought with him the hell out of it.

While she’d been outside, trying to beat the storm from hell and losing that battle handily, tracking and covering his movements all the way out into the hills, she’d made a promise to herself. She didn’t care what was going on, or why he’d come to find her, she wasn’t leaving here. This was her home now, these were her mountains, her retreat, her corner of the world. Her haven. And she’d be damned if she was going to let anyone take it away from her.

She blew across the surface of her tea, hating that her breath was still a bit uneven. She could blame it on the aftereffects of her long hike through the wind and rain, but she’d bundled up against the elements and had taken appropriate precautions, using her walking stick when she had to. Covering her tracks as well.

She popped a few over-the-counter pain relievers as she took another sip. These days, it was thankfully the only medicine she required, and only then when needed. She didn’t hurt now, but she knew she’d pay the price tomorrow, so a little preemptive strike was in order. Plus, it was likely only the beginning of the strain she might have to put on her still relatively newly-healed body. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind, meditate, even briefly, reclaim the calm she’d worked so hard to find inside herself.

But every time she closed her eyes, it was like a myriad of images coming at her in high speed, making her head hurt, drawing her thoughts down paths they had no business traversing. Whether they be inappropriate thoughts of her former boss, or unnecessary flashbacks to a life that no longer mattered.

So she stared instead across the small kitchen, past the foyer, and out the large picture window beyond. Even though the heavy rains shrouded her view, she could clearly visualize the rippling chain of velvety mountains that hugged the valley. Her valley. Keeping her gaze there, she focused her thoughts on the immediate future. On what lay in store for her now that Derek was here. What threat had he brought with him that, right at this very moment, might be laying siege to her peaceful existence?

She’d been heartened by the fact that she hadn’t found any other tracks between her house and the tangle of bush and brush she’d tracked him to, that he appeared to have literally crawled out from. Then the storm had come gunning, so she had opted not to track further, though she’d wanted to. She’d wanted to find out where he’d made camp, and perhaps even pick up the trail of who had gotten to him, as he hadn’t been in any condition since their surprise ambush to do so himself. The more information she gathered on her own, saw firsthand with her own eyes, the better she’d feel. It wasn’t a matter of not trusting Derek, but he operated in a world—once her world—where information was power, and often the line between life and death. He’d share what he knew accordingly, even if he thought his choices were governed by his concern for her best interests. She’d been fully in charge of her own best interests for some time now, and she had no intention of giving up any of that power unless absolutely necessary.

The storm and winds were fierce enough to make any tracking after the fact close to impossible, but she’d also been well aware of her physical limitations, and she knew just getting back to the cabin was going to exhaust what little energy she’d had left at that point. It was with regret that she’d turned around, but with the promise that she’d head back out after the storm to see if there was any salvageable track left to follow.

She absently massaged her left thigh, even though the steel rod that was in there now wasn’t exactly going to respond to any amount of rubbing she could do. The muscle tissue wrapped around that rod needed constant coaxing and care to stay limber and flexible. Her muscles were strong now, and she was more resilient than she’d ever thought she’d be again. But there were limitations, and some of them would never be surmounted. It was a compromise she’d accepted.

But she wasn’t the average person, living the average life. No matter how badly she’d like to think she was. Not before, and apparently not ever. The proof of which was currently taking up residence in her bed.

As if summoned by her thoughts, he called out not a second later. “Done.”

She dragged her gaze from the picture window and her thoughts inward along with it, gathering her strength, and her wits. She’d need both for what was about to come. “Okay,” she called back, hearing the fatigue in her voice, knowing she was going to have to find some way to mask it. She pushed her chair back. The time had come to find out what was going on. And what it was going to take to re-secure her life here.

She topped off her herbal tea and poured Derek a cup of coffee. She breathed in the rich scent, sorely tempted to relax her self-imposed limits on her daily intake. The punch of caffeine would be welcome, but during recovery she’d learned that it would also leave her jittery and unable to relax, much less sleep. She’d initially thought to eliminate it all together, but eventually she’d found a balance. It was harder, possibly, to maintain, but as a constant test of discipline, which was vital if she was to maintain her hard-won rejuvenation, it wasn’t such a bad thing, all in all.

She carried both mugs into the bedroom, then immediately put them on the dresser top so she could intercept his shaking attempts to put his food tray back on the night stand. “If you couldn’t wait for me to take it, you could have just set it on the bed next to you.”

He didn’t apologize or look remotely repentant. It almost made her wish he was still in a drugged stupor. Derek with all his faculties in order was going to demand much more control on her part. Unfortunately, he needed all his faculties in order for her to get the information she needed.

“I didn’t want to slosh it on the bedspread,” he said by way of explanation.

“If you’d eaten all of it, there wouldn’t be anything to slosh.”

“I got more of it down than I thought I would.”

She set the tray on the dresser and picked up the mugs. “Is that commentary on my cooking?”

“No, just commentary on the state of my body.”

She started to hand him the coffee, but handed him the tea instead. “You might want to stick with this, then, at least for the time being.”

He looked down in the weak brown contents. “Tea.” He looked up at the mug in her hand. “I smell coffee.”

She set the mug on the dresser, next to his uneaten soup. “When you can finish your food, then we’ll talk about coffee. Your system needs the former more than the latter.”

“Nurse Ratched,” he grumbled, but she noted he sipped the tea. She tried not to think about the fact that it was her mug he was putting his lips on, because it was completely ridiculous to even go there, but go there her thoughts did.

She purposely kept her gaze off his mug of coffee. She needed more than a caffeine jolt at the moment. “Let’s just say I know of where I speak, and leave it at that.”

His gaze lifted to hers, but he didn’t say anything. She fervently prayed it stayed that way. She had no plans to discuss anything about her life here, her recovery, any of it, with him. “Tell me, from the beginning, what happened that led you to come all the way out here to stalk me.”

“I wasn’t stalking you. I was observing you.”

“Why not just contact me directly?”

“I needed to make certain you weren’t part of…”

When he didn’t continue, she walked around to his side of the bed. “Part of what?”

Derek sighed and briefly closed his eyes. For a moment she thought he was succumbing, once again, to either his injuries, the drugging, or both. But just as she moved forward, he opened his eyes. “Things have changed within the agency since you’ve left. Nothing is the same, and I don’t know who to trust.”

She had no idea what she’d expected him to say, something about CJ contacting him and him being concerned about what connection she might play in that startling discovery that her former partner was still alive. But this…was entirely unexpected. “What do changes in the agency have to do with CJ still being alive? I thought that was what drove you to come out here and drag me back into a world I very specifically left behind.”

He stared into her eyes for a long moment, then closed his again. “It’s a long story, Tate.”

She folded her arms. “I find I have the time. And you’re certainly not going anywhere.”

He let out another long breath, then looked at her again. “Go and get a chair, or something. This might take awhile. And it will be easier on us both if you’re at least comfortable while I tell you and not glowering over me.”

“I’ve a right to glower. And you will tell me everything, Derek. And when you’re done, you’ll answer all my questions. You came to me, not the other way around, so—”

“I’ll answer what I can.”

“You’ll answer what you know. Not what you choose. It’s my life that’s being put in jeopardy here, if the condition you arrived in is any indication, so any trust issues you might have, get over them.” She walked over to the stuffed chair in the corner and dragged it over to the side of the bed. She sat, masking the relief that the comfort of getting off of her feet and sitting on something soft, gave to her. She shouldn’t have had to worry about exposing her weaknesses or vulnerabilities, even to him, maybe especially to him, who’d seen her at her lowest, most vulnerable point, but she’d been too well trained to reveal anything she didn’t need to. “If it eases your mind any, since the day I left the rehabilitation wing of the hospital, I have not been in any kind of contact, in any manner whatsoever, with anyone connected to, or pertaining to, my former life, in any way, shape, or form. And certainly not my heretofore dead partner.” It sounded harsh, saying it like that, but the truth was, she still hadn’t—couldn’t—fully process, in any real way, that CJ was alive.

She had his full attention now, his gaze tightly focused on her own. It was a visceral thing, his full attention, even when he was injured and laid up in bed. She found herself shifting back in her seat, almost bracing herself.

“As far as you know, anyway,” he said.

“What on earth does that mean?” she demanded, sitting forward again. “I’m very well aware of who I’m in contact with and who I am not. Unless you’re intimating that the handful of neighbors I’ve befriended since moving here, all valley residents for decades prior to my arrival, are actually a network of undercover foreign operatives…then I believe I can state with fair certainty that I’ve been totally cut off from that world.”

“That was the conclusion I’d drawn as well.”

She clapped her hands several times. “Bravo, then. So, I ask again, why not simply approach me?”

“I was about to do that very thing when I took a dart to the shoulder.”

She sat back again. “How long had you been out there?”

“Before the attack, a week.”

“And watching me for a week is all it took to make certain I wasn’t secretly in cahoots with someone?”

“You know better than that. I ran a thorough search before coming out here.”

“Now, that sounds more like the Derek Cole I knew.” She frowned then, as something else occurred to her. “Why you?”

“What do you mean? CJ contacted me, and only me.”

“Okay, but surely you weren’t going to keep that information to yourself? I mean, it’s a fairly major event, an agent rising, literally, from the dead. You’d need help. Why not put someone else out there in the hills on watch for me? And who tranq’d you?”

“As I started to say earlier, things have changed tremendously in the agency since your departure.”

“Retirement. You can’t say it even now. Do you have such little respect for my decision, even after all this time?”

“Actually,” he said, sounding suddenly weary, “I have far more respect for it now than ever before.”

“What, you thinking about getting out of the game, too?” She’d said it, half-kidding, knowing that their agency was her former boss’s entire life. He’d said so often enough, and said it with pride.

So it came as something of a shock when he responded, quite seriously, “I don’t know. It’s no longer the game I signed on to play.”

Now it was her turn to be intently focused on him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that our agency isn’t what it once was. Our mission, under Mankowicz’s direction, was to use intel that our regular channels of security couldn’t sanction, to privately infiltrate known threats in order to bring an end to similar privately funded, non-military, covert operations against our country.”

“And what’s changed? Are you saying they replaced Mankowicz? But he was the best agent our country ever had. Our agency was his brainchild and he had the blessing—hell, the relief and gratitude—of everyone who knew of our existence. No way did he step down, so—” Her face fell. “Wait, you’re not saying he’s—”

“He’s very much alive, but there was a shift in power, and our agency got caught in the crossfire. Mankowicz was, to all public eyes, promoted to ambassador, which is a polite way of saying he was given a choice of taking a prestigious position, or retiring.”

“Who did they put in his place? And why keep the team at all, if they didn’t think—”

“Oh, they thought we were doing a grand job.”

“Because we were!”

“‘Were’ being the operative word there.”

“What do you mean? We couldn’t possibly—”

“It took me awhile to figure it out. Too long, actually. I was like you.” A brief smile ghosted his bruised lips. “A little cocky and arrogant about our team.”

“I prefer to think of it as pride,” she said, meaning every word. “We earned that right.”

“Well, whatever you want to call it, I never thought, even with Mankowicz out, that things would change all that much. Northam is a controlling, micromanaging asshole, but, push come to shove, he needed me to run the program, because I always have, and successfully so, and it was more important for him to be racking up wins than try and push his way into a situation and job he had little real understanding of, just because he has an ego the size of Asia.”

“Wiley Northam? He—they gave it to him? Why in the hell would anybody give that windbag such a delicate job demanding diplomacy on a level that—” She broke off, rubbed her forehead as she let the information sink in. “Political assignment, clearly, I get it, but still there had to be somewhere else they could stick him and make him feel important without risking our agency.”

“My sentiments exactly, but stick him with us, they did. I wasn’t happy. In fact, I was downright pissed off, but, as I said, I knew if I kept the marks high in the win column, he’d stay out on the golf course with his blowhard cronies and leave running the team to me. I didn’t care if he took all the credit, as long as he left me and the team the hell alone.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”

“No.” He paused, and shifted slightly, lifting his hand to stop her when she began to rise to help him. “At first, I just chalked it up to him being the asshole we all know he is. But over time…I don’t know. Things weren’t adding up, but I couldn’t figure out why. Our intel was still good, but things weren’t rolling as smoothly.”

“Your intel was good because you developed your own extensive network of informants that only you had access to. Don’t tell me he expected you to hand that information over to him? Even he has to know that the only way that kind of chain works is—”

“No, he didn’t demand anything of me. In fact, that was what was so confusing. He stomped around the agency and tried to act as if he was the one making all the decisions, which I let him, because it was easier on all of us…but then, like I said, the missions started not going smoothly, at least in the areas where they should have, which made it all the more difficult to get anything accomplished in the more deeply embedded operations. With no foundations being built properly, we weren’t getting people inserted at the levels they needed to embed themselves into. Our wins were becoming fewer, and the ones we did get weren’t as impressive.”

“Didn’t the chain of command realize this coincided with Northam’s assignment to the agency and can his windbag ass?”

“I honestly don’t know what command thought, as my requests for face time with, well, anyone, continually got postponed, under the guise of a variety of plausible, yet exhausting excuses.”

“So, what are you saying is going on? If the agency isn’t performing, are they threatening to disband it altogether? Was Northam sent in for that reason? Maybe he was the sacrificial lamb, sent to slaughter a program that was no longer politically advantageous for someone higher up the foodchain than he was.”

His lips quirked again. “We think alike.”

“Is the agency in jeopardy then? Is your job on the line?” She was so caught up in his story, she’d momentarily lost sight of the fact that they hadn’t even begun to discuss where CJ fell into this tangled web, much less why Tate had been brought back into it, or who was trying to stop Derek. More disturbing was the dawning realization that, somehow, all of it was tied together. Which made her heart begin to pound.

Because if it wasn’t simply a mission gone bad, with the possibility of a rogue agent, thought to be dead, still alive and perhaps working against their interests…if this went higher than that—way higher, from the way Derek was talking—rotting from the inside out, then whatever it was he’d gotten her tangled up in was far, far more dangerous than even she’d dared to imagine. And, with her past experiences, she didn’t have to work too hard to imagine the worst.

“I don’t know where I stand with my job,” he said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. By the time I set out to do reconnaissance on you, I had figured out that something wasn’t quite kosher with our agency’s chain of command, and given our dwindling number of cases, and slowly disintegrating track record, I thought it was only a matter of time before I was replaced, but no one had actually broached the subject. Northam wasn’t threatening me with it, anyway. Which was also a red flag. They should have been all over me for underperformance and the dip in our success ratio.”

“So, what do you know now that you didn’t know then?”

“When I left, I was running this mission, regarding CJ, completely covertly.” He held her gaze. “Even from my own team. It’s why I’m here, and no one else.”

Her eyes widened, truly shocked now. “Are you saying you’re here unsanctioned? You’re rogue?”

“I wasn’t certain what I had, what in the hell it involved. All I initially had was a coded message from someone claiming to be CJ.”

“You didn’t tell anyone? Why? Because the agency was looking bad, and telling them, ‘ooops, we really didn’t lose an agent three years ago and now maybe she’s working for the other side,’ would make you look bad? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Because it isn’t me. And no, that had nothing to do with it. My gut was—is—telling me something’s off inside our agency, and I’ve done my own digging, trust me, but I can’t figure it out. I trust my immediate team, but I don’t trust command. Certainly not Northam. I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever the hell it is, it’s not on the up-and-up. We’re floundering, then out of the blue I get intel, intel that came to me outside of channels, containing information only a very, very limited number of people would know about. In fact, that number would be two. One, if you still counted the fact that CJ was no longer alive.”

“Me,” she said quietly, a chill creeping down her spine. “You thought I sent you false intel on CJ? That’s crazy.”

“A lot of things are crazy. And I didn’t know what to think. Your story about seeing CJ die was pretty damn convincing and, after all this time, I saw no reason to believe otherwise. Except, there was this coded message.”

“Purporting to be from her? Or, you thought possibly from me?”

“I believe now it was from her, but I had to know, find out, verify, whatever I could. Too many things aren’t adding up to go into this bizarre, sudden revelation without my eyes fully open to every possible contingency.”

Tate slumped back, rubbed her temples. “But you’d heard direct from me that I saw her dead with my own eyes.”

“Exactly. And…add in the things that aren’t adding up, I had no idea what to think. I didn’t know if it was some kind of trap, designed to catch me in something that would discredit me. Because Northam is doing a fine job of that, all on his own, with his singular ability to destroy everything we’ve ever accomplished.”

“So you came out here to check me out, see what was what, before telling anybody.” She folded her arms. “You did plan on telling somebody, at some point.”

“That, or determine it was some kind of hoax and set it aside completely. But I needed to know more before I decided who to trust with it, if anyone. I needed to validate the transmission.”

Tate hugged herself and let the latest volley of information sink in. She hated what he’d done to her life, but, from his perspective, she began to see where he’d had little or no choice in the matter.

“If I came out here, and couldn’t determine any active connection between you and your former partner, I’d have gone away and you’d never have known. Nor would my agency. I took a risk in coming in on this myself, for going solo, outside of channels without sanction.”

“Are you saying it was an altruistic gesture? To protect me?”

“It served both purposes, but believe it or not, my intent was to protect your privacy at all costs, unless you gave me a reason to do otherwise.” He held her gaze. “I gave you my word. And that still means something to me.”

She nodded, taking it all in, but still having a hard time processing all the levels of it. Then her head shot up as she recalled something he’d said when she’d first dragged him inside her cabin. “Wait a minute. You said you communicated with CJ. You made it sound like you’d talked to her, or had some kind of direct give-and-take. Not just some coded, third-party message. Was that the drugs making you hallucinate?”

He shook his head. “No. I have communicated with her, in a manner of speaking.”

“So, then…you believe it’s her. She’s truly alive.”

“Yes, Tate. I do believe it now. Now that I’ve been here, I don’t think it’s all some elaborate hoax.” Derek lifted his good hand toward her. “She’s alive.”

Tate merely looked at his outstretched offer of solace, then back at his face. “What did she say?”

“I only had five seconds with her direct, live time.”

“In person?”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t be here if I’d actually had her in front of me. It was a satellite voice transmission, via my laptop.”

“How long ago?”

“The day before I left to come out here to watch you. I believed it, believed her, but only to a point. I had to know for sure. Too many things still don’t add up.”

Tate’s heart was drumming so fast now, she had to fight to keep from pressing her hand against her chest to keep it from pounding straight out. “What did she say?”

“She gave me the code word that I developed for you two on your last mission together. That was never debriefed, because it was—”

“A code you developed for us, outside channels, if we ever needed to reach you outside protocol.”

“Right. Only you, me, and CJ knew that code.”

She clutched at her arms, pressing them against her middle, as the chill began to radiate outward, threatening to freeze her heart over completely. “Then what?”

“She said she was still there. She’d found a way to infiltrate, to make them think she’d switched sides, become one of them, but her ultimate goal was to get back to us, provide us with the kind of intel we’d never been privy to before.”

“With no contact? In three years?”

“When I say she was deeply embedded—”

Tate lifted her hand. “I change my mind. I don’t want to know this. You’re putting me directly in the line of fire by disclosing highly secure information and I don’t—”

“You don’t have a choice. You were right about that. And you need to know. Because she said she needed to be extracted. I asked her how, what exactly she needed.” He rolled his head, pinned her with his dark gaze. “Which is the other reason I came out here, to watch you, to try and put all the puzzle pieces together.”

“I don’t follow.”

He rolled his head again, pinning her with his gaze. She couldn’t look away.

“When I asked her what she needed for extraction, she said to get you. That you’d know.”